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U.S. Takes Discus Gold

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By LYNN ZINSER New York Times News Service

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 19, 2008

BEIJING - The U.S. track and field team's savior draped an American flag over her shoulders Monday night and ran a victory lap wearing the biggest smile she could muster, a most unlikely heroine in an event that has been an American afterthought for decades.
Stephanie Brown Trafton took her place at the head of the American team with a surprising gold medal in the discus, the first by an American woman since 1932 and the only medal of any color since 1984. Hers was a dream spawned when she was 4 years old and watching the 1984 Olympics at her home in Arroyo Grande, Calif. Back then, she wanted to be a gymnast.

Now 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds at age 28, Brown Trafton has found a more fitting route to Olympic glory.

"I want to meet Mary Lou Retton, so please, someone hook me up," Brown Trafton said. "She was my idol. I had a leotard like hers but I got too big to be a gymnast."

After three mostly miserable nights of an Olympic track meet, the American team had won only three medals.

Brown Trafton not only halted that, she sparked a bit of a turnaround. By the end of the night, three American men swept the medals in the 400-meter hurdles and pole vaulter Jenn Stuczynski snared a silver medal.

So by the time Angelo Taylor, former Gators standout Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson soared across the finish line and celebrated in one big American-flag hug, the mood around the team had lifted considerably.

"I knew America was struggling a bit but I knew we could be the heart of the team that could bring it back," Jackson said.

Taylor was not the most likely of the three competitors to lead them over the line. He is 29 and his life has taken several downturns since he won the gold medal in this event in the 2000 Olympics. In 2004, he sustained stress fractures in both his shins, did not make the finals in the Olympics and was forced to take a year off to heal. He went to work as an electrician in Atlanta. In 2006, he was given three years' probation after pleading guilty to contributing to the delinquency of two underage girls.

The three Americans were openly talking about sweeping this event after the U.S. trials. They qualified for the final as the three strongest runners. Clement also was coming off a world championship last year and Jackson had won in 2005. But it was Taylor crossing the finish line well ahead, in 47.25 seconds, his personal best. Clement had a 47.98.

In the pole vault, Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva won the gold with two jumps and then topped her own world record by clearing 16 feet, 8 inches on her third try.

Stuczynski, in her first Olympics, cleared 15 feet, 9 inches for the silver.

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