Local Athletes DOT Games Lineup -- Some Coaches Have Area Ties

When Renee Duprel mounts her bicycle at the Marymoor Park Velodrome July 28, she will be a familiar face in a familiar place, one of at least 20 athletes and coaches who will add local flavor to the Goodwill Games.

For the past couple years, Duprel has been the No. 2 sprinter in the U.S., behind Connie Paraskevin-Young.

Having dominated the sport in the early 1980s, Young is 29 and has been eclipsed by Soviet Erika Salumae.

Five years younger, Duprel has her eyes on world championships and the 1992 Summer Olympics. The Goodwill Games could represent her coming-out party.

Boxer Emmett Linton, born and raised in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood, is a similar story.

A former two-time Junior Olympic champion, Linton is the U.S national champion in the 147-pound division. He will begin his quest for the Goodwill Games welterweight title July 30 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

His main obstacles will be Romanian Francisco Vastag, the two-time defending world champion, and fellow American Raul Marquez, the world runner-up.

Linton will have company in Paul Vaden, a San Diego native who now lives in Puyallup. Vaden is a national champion at 156 pounds. His major competition in the light heavyweight tournament, which begins July 31 at the Coliseum, will be reigning world champion Torsten Schmitz of East Germany.

Vaden and Linton train at the Al Davies Club in Tacoma under Tom Mustin. Linton has trained with Mustin since he was 7; Vaden has trained with him for four years. A veteran coach of several U.S. international teams, Mustin is one of four coaches for the U.S. Goodwill Games boxing team.

Another Goodwill Games coach with local ties is Bob Neville of the U.S. men's volleyball team. Neville will coach the team at least through the 1992 Olympics. He has major holes to fill because of the retirement of Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons, stars of the 1988 Olympics. The Goodwill Games tournament, July 30-Aug. 4 at the University of Washington's Edmundson Pavilion, will be the first major event in which Neville's rebuilding efforts can be judged.

The largest local contingent in the Goodwill Games will compete in marathons this weekend. An estimated 3,000 runners are registered for the men's race Saturday and 800 for the women's race Sunday. Billed as ``peoples' events,'' they are open to all competitors; open runners will start behind the top seeds.

The next-largest local contingent will be in force during the track meet, July 22-26, at Husky Stadium.

Steeplechaser Peter Koech of Kenya is the most prominent athlete with local ties in the Games. The former Washington State star ran 8:05.35 last year, erasing the world record of 8:05.4 set in Husky Stadium in 1978 by Henry Rono, another Kenyan and ex-WSU student.

Another former Cougar is Doug Nordquist, 31, The Athletics Congress high jump champion in 1986 and 1988 will compete for the U.S. team.

Three local athletes - Vicki Borsheim, Annette Hand-Peters and Tony Li - will have events in Husky Stadium Monday.

Tony Li, who will be a senior at WSU and who won the NCAA indoor championship in the 55-meter hurdles, will compete for China in the 110-meter hurdles. Hand-Peters, a 1983 graduate of Central Valley High, just outside Spokane, was the 1988 NCAA champion in the 5,000-meter run. She will run for the U.S. at 3,000 meters.

The only track athlete who will enjoy a home-field advantage is Borsheim, the former Husky high jumper and 1984 graduate of Everett's Cascade High. Borsheim leaped 6 feet, 4 inches, a personal-best, to finish third at the TAC outdoor championships, the Goodwill Games qualifying meet for U.S. athletes. She received an at-large berth for the Games.

Dan O'Brien, a native of Klamath Falls, Ore., attended Spokane Community College in 1988, but transferred to Idaho and became one of the country's top decathletes in his only season of NCAA competition. He finished second at the TAC meet and will represent the U.S. in the decathlon competition, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Four rowers with local connections will compete with the U.S. team during the Goodwill Games rowing event, Saturday and Sunday, at the Mount Baker Rowing Park on Lake Washington.

Twin sisters Mary and Betsy McCagg, who rowed at Lakeside School before representing Radcliffe for four years, have earned places in the U.S. women's eight which will race Saturday.

Former Husky oarsman Rob Shepard will row in two events here - the men's open fours with coxswain on Saturday and the men's open eights on Sunday.

Amy Baltzel of Seattle also will be competing in two events - the women's open eights with the McCaggs Saturday and the women's open four without coxswain Sunday.

In baseball, pitchers Aaron Sele, of Poulsbo and Washington State, and Ronnie Allen, of Kirkland and Texas A&M, will be on the U.S. team, which opens competition against the Soviet Union July 26 at Tacoma's Cheney Stadium.

At the Tacoma Dome Aug. 4, ice dancers Susan Wynne and Joseph Druar, who have represented the Seattle Skating Club since they began skating competitively, will represent the U.S.

Though a native of San Diego, Brian Ledbetter should command a local following when he sails in the finn-class yachting competition on Shilshole Bay Aug. 4.

Ledbetter is an in-law of the Buchan clan, the biggest name in Northwest sailing, which has accounted for two Olympic gold medals.