Germany Athletics

The future of American soccer has arrived and it is Eric Wynalda. Why does that cause so many in this country's soccer Establishment to wince? Could it be because Wynalda, a 23-year-old forward from Westlake Village, has been kicked off virtually every team he has been a part of? Could his ejection from the first World Cup game in which he played have lingering repercussions? Have his brashness and self-confidence irritated coaches to the extent that they have been blinded to his talent?

The German track federation upheld the suspension of world champion sprinter Katrin Krabbe and teammates Grit Breuer and Manuela Derr for taking banned substances.

World women's sprint champion Katrin Krabbe, who avoided a doping ban because of a legal technicality seven weeks ago, was labeled a drug cheat Friday and suspended. Krabbe, 22, and German teammate Grit Breuer face four-year bans from competition after random tests they returned during training last month were confirmed as positive for the drug Clenbuterol.

The trainer of Katrin Krabbe, Germany's double world sprint champion, was fired by Krabbe's track club for giving her the banned stimulant clenbuterol. "Thomas Springstein irresponsibly betrayed his duty as trainer of caring for the athletes under his charge," the Neubrandenburg Sports Club said in a statement. Last week, Springstein acknowledged buying clenbuterol on the black market for Krabbe and teammates Grit Breuer and Manuela Derr.

Germany's Ludger Beerbaum, aboard Classic Touch, had two perfect rides under wet and windy conditions to win the gold medal in the equestrian individual jumping competition Sunday. Norman Dello Joio of West Palm Beach, Fla., rode Irish, his 11-year-old gelding, to a bronze medal. Dello Joio was faultless over the first course in the morning, and sent only one bar tumbling during the afternoon for a score of 4.75 on the day. Piet Raymakers of the Netherlands, on Ratina Z, won the silver medal.

Olympic women's long jump champion Heike Drechsler has no sympathy for former East German teammates Katrin Krabbe, Grit Breuer and Manuela Derr, who admitted last week that they had been using clenbuterol. Krabbe and Breuer were suspended earlier this year for attempting to manipulate a drug test, although they were exonerated by the international governing body for track and field on a technicality.

When Jackie Joyner-Kersee accused a German competitor of employing unsportsmanlike tactics to disrupt her concentration during the heptathlon last weekend, it was not the first time. During the 1987 World Championships at Rome, while Joyner-Kersee was on the runway focusing on her next long jump, an East German jumper decided to practice her approach on a parallel runway by charging toward the American. The East German abandoned the mind game when scolded by a teammate, Heike Drechsler.