WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : World Cup Now Appears in Sight, as the Sites Begin Falling Into Place

On July 4, 1988, FIFA, the international soccer federation, awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States. Almost four years, dozens of rumors about the move of the tournament to a more traditional soccer country and an equal number of marketing-related announcements later, the event finally appears like more than a mirage.

Not only did the 582-game, 138-country qualifying process begin over the weekend, but the organizing committee, World Cup ‘94, will formally announce today in New York the U.S. cities that will stage games between June 17 and July 17, 1994.

The Associated Press reported Sunday night that Los Angeles, as expected, has been selected; along with the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich., the first indoor site for World Cup; Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.; Chicago’s Soldier Field; Dallas’ Cotton Bowl, and either Candlestick Park or Stanford Stadium in the Bay Area. The L.A. site is expected to be the Rose Bowl.

Washington’s RFK Stadium, or possibly a proposed new stadium, is a seventh site. Two other sites have yet to be named.

Organizers had hoped at first to have 12 sites, but it was decided nine would be less costly.

Twenty-seven cities had applied to be sites for the tournament, with eight being eliminated in December. And now several sources said Columbus, Ohio, Miami, New Haven, Conn., New Orleans, Tampa, Fla., Philadelphia and Seattle appeared to have been eliminated, leaving Atlanta, Foxboro Stadium outside Boston, Denver, Kansas City, Mo., and Orlando, Fla., competing for the last two spots.

What’s not known is whether the Rose Bowl will be selected to play host to the championship game, a decision that will not be announced until early July in a meeting at FIFA headquarters in Zurich.

Addressing conventional wisdom that only a proposed new stadium in Washington would be preferable to the Rose Bowl, Rothenberg said: “I think that’s a fair statement. If you’re going to have a state-of-the-art stadium, built to soccer specifications, in the nation’s capital, that would be a sensible place to host the final.”

But he said that negotiations between Redskin owner Jack Kent Cooke and the city regarding construction are not progressing rapidly. “Each day that goes by makes it less likely that they will build that,” he said.

There might be life in figure skating for Christopher Bowman of Van Nuys when he retires from competition after this week’s World Championships at Oakland.

His agent, Michael Rosenberg of Palm Desert, said he has an offer for Bowman to take his act on the road as one of the headliners, perhaps along with the Russian dance team of Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, in a six-month, 50-city tour that would start in November.

“What I’m selling is Andre Agassi and Mick Jagger,” Rosenberg said of Bowman, whose wild child image might be helping instead of harming his marketability. “Agassi has never won a major championship, but he sells more tickets than Jim Courier and Michael Chang put together.”

Rosenberg also represents figure skating’s Bash Sister, Tonya Harding of Portland, who made headlines recently by wielding a baseball bat during a traffic-related dispute with another motorist. There were no hits and no runs, but Harding has acknowledged her error.

“She is properly remorseful,” Rosenberg said of Harding, who, like Bowman, will try to improve on a fourth-place Olympic finish at the World Championships.

As for his other U.S. Olympians, national pairs champions Calla Urbanski of Skokie, Ill., and Rocky Marval of New Egypt, N.J., Rosenberg said that Robert Halmi is interested in producing a made-for-TV movie about them. Halmi is no minor player, having bought the rights to “Scarlett,” the sequel to “Gone With the Wind.”

Mary Lou Retton, who will appear at the Forum next Friday night along with Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci and others in Hilton’s Superstars of Gymnastics, said the U.S. women’s improvement since Coach Bela Karolyi arrived in Houston from Romania a decade ago has been most noticeable on the beam. She credits Karolyi’s wife, Marta.

“She’s the best beam coach in the world,” Retton said. “She’s like a hawk, watching every move. When I first started working with her, I was scared of the beam. But by the time I got to the Olympics, she had turned me into a confident beam walker because I had done my routine hundreds and hundreds of times.”

Speaking of Karolyi, it appeared last year as if either Kim Zmeskal or Betty Okino would emerge from his gym as the No. 1 U.S. medal hopeful in gymnastics at the Summer Olympics. But Okino broke a kneecap, and Zmeskal went on to become the first U.S. woman to win the all-around title at the World Championships.

Okino continues to struggle. “Physically, I think she can come back,” Retton said. “But it’s going to be a long haul for her psychologically. When I saw her in the gym recently, I told her that I had knee surgery six weeks before the (1984) Olympics.”

Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons, the best-known players from the U.S. gold medal men’s volleyball teams in 1984 and 1988, are expected to decide by the middle of next month whether to return to the team for a third Olympics.

“We feel pretty good about our chances with Steve, but Karch is still weighing all his options,” USA Volleyball spokesman Richard Wanninger said.

Kiraly, who, like Timmons, plays professionally in Italy, has indicated that he wants to limit his travel when the season ends next month because his wife is expecting a child in June.

Notes

Lynn Jennings of Newmarket, N.H., won her third straight world cross-country championship Saturday at Boston. Scotland’s Liz McColgan, one of the pre-race favorites, finished 41st. Kenya’s John Ngugi won the men’s championship. . . . Seeking a reprieve in his two-year drug suspension through international arbitration in April, quarter-miler Butch Reynolds is training with Stanford Coach Brooks Johnson at Palo Alto.

Relieved by the overwhelming support for the end of apartheid in a vote last week by white South Africans, the International Olympic Committee is continuing to plan for South Africa’s return to the Olympics this summer at Barcelona. An IOC delegation will meet with political and sports leaders next week at Johannesburg. . . . The IOC gave the two Koreas a Wednesday deadline to decide whether they would send a joint team to Barcelona, but the North Koreans have withdrawn from discussions. They’re still angry because one of their judo champions defected last year to South Korea.