PRIDE OF SYRIA

GHADA SHOUAA

Jackie Joyner-Kersee has never visited Mehardi, a good-size farming village (pop. 20,000) perched in the mountains of central Syria. But something of hers is headed there--the Olympic heptathlon title that she's held for much of the past decade.

"You have raised high the name of Syria," President Hafez Assad wrote to Mehardi native Ghada Shouaa, 23, after she won the contest that crowns the world's greatest female athlete. Hers was a milestone victory--the first Olympic gold for Syria, the second worldwide title for Shouaa (who also took the 1995 championship) and the third gold ever for an Arab woman. "My joy was beyond description. I was in shock from too much joy," gushed her mother, Nadwa, 54. All week, jubilant villagers bearing sticky pastries flocked to the Shouaa home. "Celebrations are taking place from dawn to dusk, with people dancing, riding horses, blaring their car horns." For Mehardi, the party is just getting started. Many think the 1.78-m, 65-kg Shouaa, still unpolished in the hurdles and high jump, hasn't yet peaked. Already she wants another shot at Joyner-Kersee who was injured. "I came here to beat her," said Shouaa. "I plan to beat her next year at the Athens world championship."

OUTRACING DOUBTS

WANG JUNXIA

In 1993 when China's Wang Junxia, 23, hacked 42 seconds off the 10,000-m world record, a yet more astounding statistic was hidden within her time of 29:31.78. She actually ran the second half of the race in 14:26.09--faster than the existing 5,000-m record. So her amazing near double last week--a gold in the inaugural Olympic 5,000 and silver in the 10,000--shouldn't have come as a surprise.

Yet Wang had attracted legions of doubters since 1993. She upended the hierarchy in women's distance running that year with performances that included four new world records in six days at the National Games in Beijing. But her 1994 mutiny against coach Ma Junren--he of the turtle-blood potions and marathon-a-day training regimen--threw her off stride. Drug rumors spawned by her record-breaking runs grew stronger when she disappeared from international competition. Her comeback, then, proved doubly sweet: she had scaled two mountains to climb the medal stand--rising above the swirl of innuendo and returning to the pinnacle of distance running.

BRIGHTEST SILVER

HEZEKIEL SEPENG

Two years ago, in the homestretch of an 800-m semifinal at track's world championships, American Johnny Gray generously made room for Hezekiel Sepeng (left) to pass him and earn a spot in the finals. "He figured the world owed us one," the black South African runner said later. Last week he repaid Gray by kicking past him into second place in the 800 m--and into the record books as the first black South African ever to win an Olympic medal.

Sepeng, 22, learned early on about passing intimidating opponents. In the western Transvaal community of Potchefstroom, he enrolled as one of only seven black students in the newly desegregated local boys' school. "I didn't want to pass the Afrikaner runners, so I ran in front from the gun so no one could touch me," he recalls. From there he embarked on an illustrious junior career, winning the first international championship medal by a black South African--a silver at the 1994 Commonwealth Games--and setting a national record in the 800 m. He broke that record--and several unspoken barriers--in Atlanta. "The record is for me," he said later. "The medal is for my country."

MASTER OF THE OARS

STEVEN REDGRAVE

As Britain's Steven Redgrave, 34, and his partner, Matthew Pinsent, 25, prepared to row in the coxless pairs final, nothing much was riding on the outcome--merely confirmation of Redgrave's status as the greatest oarsman of the century. The heavily favored duo rode a 58-race winning streak into Atlanta, with Redgrave--who won two Olympic golds with other crews before teaming with Pinsent for a third in Barcelona--looking for his 10th world championship and an unprecedented fourth consecutive Olympic rowing gold.

More than a late sprint from the Australian boat threatened the outcome. An onslaught of media attention, a snarled transit system that prompted the two Brits to move out of the Olympic Village, and the Centennial Park pipe bombing barely eight hours earlier all conspired to distract the pair. Nevertheless, they led wire to wire in Redgrave's last row. "If anyone sees me near a boat again," the 20-year veteran promised after the race, "they can shoot me."

ANDREI THE GIANT

ANDREI CHEMERKIN

Aleksandr Kurlovich wanted to keep it. Ronny Weller thought he had taken it. But Russia's Andrei Chemerkin clean-and-jerked it away from both of them--the unofficial but powerfully intimidating title of world's strongest man.

The two-time defending Olympic champion Kurlovich, now competing for Belarus, was trying to become only the second weight lifter in history to win three successive gold medals. (Turkey's "Pocket Hercules," Naim Suleymanoglu, had accomplished the feat earlier in the competition.) But his disappointing lift total of 425 kg was good only for fifth place. That left Germany's Weller and defending world champion Chemerkin in an exhilarating tit-for-tat heavyweight battle. The lead changed eight times in nine clean-and-jerk lifts--including Weller's last, when he topped Chemerkin's world record and triumphantly cast his shoes into the audience.

The Russian was not done, though. "I didn't care if he was totally undressed," scoffed Chemerkin later. He added 5 kg to his own bar and hoisted 260 kg skyward to claim a new record and the gold. His victory completes a remarkable progression for the 24-year-old police academy sergeant: a former swimming and football enthusiast, he took up lifting at age 14. He became Russia's junior champion at 19, and in the past three years he has built up from bronze to silver to gold in the world championships. Even so, his new mantle as the world's strongest man seems a bit overwhelming. "Literally a weight to carry on my shoulders," he says.