The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 109

20 Part VIII Friday, August 3. 198A Cos Angeles (Times Compiled By JERRY GILLAM Legendary Yamashita May Be the Ultimate Weapon United Presa International Armando Romero of Mexico takes a dive (top) in the three-day endurance equestrian competition at Fairbanks Ranch in Rancho Santa Fe when his horse, Homenaje, tumbles on a water jump. Romero goes under (bottom), but neither the rider nor the horse was injured. I From Times Staff Writers and Wire Services More certain than a Carl Lewis parlay or an Edwin Moses romp is the prospect of a gold medal for Yasuhiro Yamashita. If ever there was a mortal lock in Olympic judo, it is Yamashita, a 5-11, 280-pound Japanese legend whose winning streak eclipses even Moses' 89 straight victories in the intermediate hurdles.

Yamashita has not come close to losing a bout since 1977, a string encompassing 194 fights-rl89 of them won by ippon, the judo equivalent of a knockout. Not counting his opponents in the open division, Yamashita is a unanimous choice among the world's judoists. Polled informally on their gold -medal predictions, judokas from China to Canada invariably begin: "Well, there's Yamashita, of course, and. Naturally enough, Yamashita's open-class rivals-including America's Dewey Mitchell, fit, feisty and 40 pounds lighter concede the gold to nobody this side of Ft. Knox.

Still, when asked by Sports Illustrated what could stop Yamashita, Noboyuki Sato, his sensei (coachmaster), replied: "A nuclear war." -DICK RORABACK Liselott Diem, widow of Carl Diem, the chief organizer of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, is in Los Angeles this week, attending yet another Olympic Games in a press capacity. Diem also attended the 1980 Moscow Olympics. She says she thinks the L.A. opening was even better than Moscow's, although, as Olympic openings go, she regarded Moscow's as "first-rate." Diem gives high marks to the LAOOC in all particulars except for the spread -out character of the Games. Now well past 70, she says it is a hassle to get around L.A.

Accordingly, she plans to return home Saturday, only a week into the Games. -KENNETH REICH Flo Hyman of the U.S. women's volleyball team lived up to her nickname Wednesday night in her team's come-from-behind victory over Brazil. My nickname is Clutchman," Hyman said. "And mv captain was saying, 'OK, Clutchman, whatcha gonna So I said, 'OK, turn it Then Clutchman not only turned it on, she turned the last game inside out.

Hyman slammed a half-dozen winning crucial spikes in the final minutes of the fifth game, including the match -winner. Charles Shields says he was so overcome with emotion when he saw his grandson, Tim Daggett, score a perfect 10 at the Olympics that he started crying and ran outside in the middle of the night to turn on the lights and raise an American flag. "I was so thrilled that I had to tell everyone who went by that something had happened," Shields, 84, said. The 22-year-old UCLA psychology major's performance on the horizontal bars was the third perfect American routine and enabled the U.S. to earn its first gold medal ever in Olympic gymnastics.

Shields said he left the flag flying from a five -foot pole on the side of his house all night and kept it there Wednesday as family, friends and neighbors came by to congratulate him. When U.S. gymnast Bart Conner underwent arm surgery last December to repair a torn biceps muscle, he came away from the operation with several souvenirs about 40 bone chips. One was as big as Conner's thumb. His mother kept it, and now that her son is a (team) gold medalist, she has definite plans for it.

"She wants to have the bone chip plated in gold and make a necklace out of it," Conner said. "Pretty tacky, huh?" -MIKE PENNER The Dodgers are playing on the road while the Olympic baseball demonstration tournament is being held at Dodger Stadium, but there are some reminders of the team that normally occupies the third base dugout. Italy's uniforms are an exact replica of those worn by the Dodgers when playing on the road. They're gray with blue and white trim, and the number on the front of the jersey is red. The only difference is that instead of Dodgers on the front, it says Italia.

Maybe Tom Lasorda helped design them. The Dominican Republic has a player named Mota. He's a 17-year-old outfielder, whose first name is Miguel. He's not related to Manny Mota, but he received loud cheers during the player introductions. -BOB CUOMO The Olympic pool is being kept clean with injections of ozone gas instead of the usual chlorine.

The method has been tested for the past four months at the Mission Viejo Swim Complex and seems to help reduce eye irritation. Many swimmers still wear goggles, however, because they improve visibility. "It works great," said Mark Schubert, the Mission Viejo coach and an Olympic assistant. "They inject it (ozone) once in the morning and it works all day. It's like 50 or 100 times more powerful at killing bacteria than chlorine, and there's no residual like with chlorine.

Your eyes never hurt after a workout." -JOHNWEYLER The executive board of the International Olympic Committee banned a masseur for the Japanese team from the Games and delivered a "severe warning" to that country's delegation for allowing him to give an herbal product to one of its volleyball players as a cold treatment. The IOC did not ban the athlete, Mikiyasy Tanaka, from the Olympics, according to a statement released by the IOC Thursday. But the masseur, Yoshi Yahagi, will no longer be allowed to participate in the Los Angeles Games or the in next two Olympics. A test of Tanaka's urine revealed that he had taken a Japanese product containing the herb ephedra. The IOC found that Yahagi gave Tanaka the herb for a cold and told the athlete that the product was not a drug but a "simple herbal remedy" which would not lead to a problem in a dope-control test.

Following the recommendation of the IOC Medical Commission, the executive board decided that the Japanese delegation should "receive a severe warning has been coaching the Greek team for only a few months. The score was 6-5, the year was 1978, it was a night game, it was raining -MILES CORWIN There was an added touch to "Star Wars Marathon" at the USC Olympic Village Tuesday night a special guest appearance by Darth Vader. Vincent Sarnelli of France strolled up to the black-caped villain and showed him the boxing gloves imprinted on his Olympic identification tag. "I'm not afraid of you, I'm a boxer," Sarnelli said as he pretended to box with Vader. The USC Village cinema showed all three of the film hits produced and directed by George Lucas "Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi." Lucas is a USC graduate.

Between movies, Vader strolled through the village greeting athletes along the way. He often stopped to have his picture taken with athletes, teasingly placing his hands around the necks of male athletes and drawing female athletes under his black cape. The only problem Vader faced in the village came from security guards who repeatedly stopped him, asking for his identification since he wasn't wearing an accreditation badge. George Haines is the dean of the U.S. Olympic swimming team's coaching staff.

Haines, 58, head women's coach at Stanford, is an Olympic coach for the seventh consecutive time. His first Olympic coaching assignment was in 1960 at Rome. He was the head coach in 1980, but the United States boycotted the Games at Moscow. Some of his former pupils are among the legends in the sport, including Mark Spitz and Don Schollander. This time, Haines is serving as an assistant under Coach Don Gambril, who is on the Olympic coaching staff for the fifth time.

-SEYMOUR BEUBIS What's the use of winning a gold medal if you can't call anybody and tell 'em? American gymnasts Tim Daggett and Bart Conner were tooling around in a luxurious white ABC-TV limousine complete with phone after a late-night interview Tuesday and found themselves in that circumstance. Here they were, just a few hours after winning the team gold medal riding high and in style and nobody home to answer the phone. "Boy, was that frustrating," Daggett said. The new heroes, thus exasperated, told the chauffeur (not named James) to take them back to the USC Olympic Village, where they were greeted with a worthy welcome and stayed up till "I better not say," Daggett said, checking for Coach Abie Grossfeld. Of course, Grossfeld wasn't one to talk.

"I got to bed at 4:30 (a.m.)," he said. Mitch Gaylord, Daggett's fellow gold medalist, one-upped him. "I never did get to sleep," he said. -RICK REILLY Canadian field hockey player Laurie Lambert casts one vote for tranquility at East Los Angeles College, where a new sound system plays popular music between games and a high school band sometimes entertains. "I don't like all the music.

I'd rather have peace and quiet and two people in the stands like usual," she said as teammates winced. -ALAN DROOZ Among the hundreds of telegrams and messages the American gymnasts received Wednesday morning was this one from Diana Ross to Bart Conner: "My daughter and I watched you on TV last night. We just wanted to say we love you." Noticeably absent from the salutations, though, was one from President Reagan. "Hey, that's right," said Tim Daggett, Conner's teammate. "We haven't heard from Ron yet." -MIKE PENNER Ryan O'Neal and his companion, Farrah Fawcett, were among the boxing fans at the Sports Arena Wednesday night, and both the actor and actress insisted that they are, indeed, fight fans.

O'Neal has managed professional boxers in the past and said he hopes to sign Canadian heavyweight Willie deWit to a pro contract after the Olympics. His partner, he said, would be rock music promoter Shelly Finkel of New York. Asked if he had ever boxed as an amateur, O'Neal replied: "I had 12 fights." However, the exact number of victories was hazy. "I won the majority of them," he said. Majority? "That's right more than half." Other ringsiders included singer Andy Williams and former champions Carlos Palomino and Sugar Ray Robinson, whose ring career including more than 200 amateur bouts was legendary.

-JACK HAWN Athletes in every Games, although fiercely competitive, are still charitable to their foes. In the 148-pound (67.5-kilogram) weightlifting session Wednesday, Hatem Bouabid of Tunisia and Surendra Hamal of Nepal shared a lifting belt because Bouabid inadvertently forgot his belt at the Olympic Village. Bouabid, however, failed to complete a snatch lift and wound up scoreless. Team handball might be the only Olympic sport that requires an explanation before play begins. Public address announcer Steve Jacobson begins each session at Cal State Fullerton by explaining the techniques and rules of the game to the fans, most of whom are watching the sport for the first time.

But the estimated 150 Danish fans who attended the opening session Tuesday obviously didn't need any explanation. Team handball is rapidly gaining on soccer as the country's No. 1 sport, and many of the fans at Fullerton were dressed in the country's colors of red and white and waving Danish flags. "We thought the sport would delight American fans because it's a speedy game with high scores and acrobatic goalkeeping," Danish Coach Leif Mikkelsen said. "It is very popular in Denmark and the sport has Please see NOTES, Page 21 of the potential danger in taking or administering herbal preparations or allowing their athletes to take any products for medical application other than those recommended by a team doctor." One of the best things about the upset victory in men's gymnastics, according to U.S.

team member Bart Conner, is the effect it has had on the mood at the Olympic Village. "So many people came to the Village worrying about what was going to happen during the Olympics," Conner said. "Forty people get run down by a car in Westwood. People wondered if there were going to be bombings at the Coliseum. "Then this happens early in the Games, and people are walking around smiling.

They're saying, 'Hey, this is going to be a good Olympics after -MIKE PENNER Team handball is a family affair for the Buehnings of Short Hills, N.J. Peter Buehning Sr. was a founder of the U.S. Team Handball Federation in 1959 and has served as the organization's president since 1961. His wife, Renate, is a vice-president of the federation and served on the organizing committee for the International Handball Federation Congress held in San Diego before the Olympics.

Their oldest son, Peter is one of two accredited American referees officiating the Games. Finally, Jim Buehning is a starter for the U.S. men's team and has been a member of the national team since 1977. -TOM HAMILTON A mistake by a Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee press aide temporarily threw the International Volleyball Federation into a panic late Wednesday night, triggering an emergency meeting of the sport's governing body to determine the fate of the Italian Olympic men's team. A fact sheet distributed by the LAOOC following Italy's victory over China Tuesday included this quote from Italian Coach Silvando Prandi: "Six of our players are from the Italian pro league." The only problem was, Prandi never said that at least in a formal interview.

And there are no professional volleyball leagues in the world. The Italian club leagues, which attract many foreign players by paying them up to $50,000 a year in "expenses," are considered amateur competition by thelVBF. An LAOOC press aide made them "pro leagues" in paraphrasing a Prandi answer to a reporter's question. In the end, the fact sheet was revised, and everybody went home but later than they had expected. -JERRY CROWE Paul B.

Zimmerman, retired sports editor of The Times, covered the 1932 Games in Los Angeles and is now an accredited journalist at the 1984 Olympics. In all, Zimmerman has covered eight previous Olympics. He presently is filing special features to the Sankei Sports Shimbun, the largest sports daily in Japan. Canadian women's field hockey Coach Marina van der Merwe, a tough taskmaster tabbed "Vince Lom-bardi in lipstick" by some of the press, was surprised to find a roomful of reporters waiting for her after Canada's 4-1 loss to the United States Wednesday. "Sorry I'm late," she said.

"I didn't realize losers were in demand." Asked if the Lombardi comparison fit, Canadian captain Shelley Andrews replied: "I don't know. I've never met Lombardi." -ALAN DROOZ The coach of the Greek water polo team, Gose Brasco Cata, was asked at a press conference if Greece had ever beaten Spain. Cata laughed and said he remembered the one victory well. He was the coach of the Spanish team at the time. "I cannot forget it," said Cata, who is Spanish and Las Vegas Bookmaker Posts Odds on Games LAS VEGAS (UPI) -Great Britain's Daley Thompson has been installed as a 2-1 favorite to defeat West Germany's Jurgen Hingsen for the decathlon title next week in the Olympic Games at Los Angeles, a Las Vegas bookmaker said Thursday.

Vic Salerno of Leroy's Horse Sports Place also posted proposition odds for four track and field events, offering 6-5 odds on whether the pole vault will be won at 19 feet 3V4 inches, the high jump at 7-10, long jump at 28-1 and the shotputat71-10. Salerno said the volume of sports betting in Las Vegas is down due to the Olympics being shown on television. "That's why we decided to put some numbers on the Games up on the board, just to draw some attention," he said. "We're getting some action, but nothing like we get during football season.".