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AT A NEWS CONFERENCE after she won a gold medal for the United States in speedskating at the Winter Olympics last February, Bonnie Blair, the pride of Champaign-Urbana, Ill., beckoned to her agent, Jim Fink, to say a few words.
"I wasn't thinking, and I inserted my foot in my mouth," Fink said recently. "It offends me now that I said she's the next Mary Lou Retton. I shouldn't have been comparing Bonnie to Mary Lou or anyone else. Bonnie Blair is Bonnie Blair, and she's not trying to be anyone else or follow in anyone else's footsteps." It's understandable that Fink, a Champaign banker who represents athletes as a sideline, would like to back off from his comparison.
The implication was that Blair, who set a world record when she won the 500-meter sprint and also won a bronze medal in the 1,000 meters, would be as commercially marketable as Retton had been after winning the gold medal in all-around gymnastics in the 1984 Olympic Games.
But linking the two also put unnecessary pressure on his client and himself by setting a standard that is probably impossible to match.
Mary Lou Retton proved to be a very hot property, maybe a once-in-a-lifetime kind of hot property, cashing in on her '84 victory with a fusillade of product endorsements and public appearances that has made her financially secure for the rest of her life.
Certainly there are parallels between Retton and Blair: Both are attractive and engaging young women; both are fierce competitors who have wonderful smiles and sparkling, unpretentious personalities.
But as far as the potential from corporate and institutional sponsors who wish to be associated with Olympic champions, the differences between the two may be more important.
That's the conclusion of other sports agents and marketing specialists, who say the quest for post-Olympic gold, which has become a fact of life for athletes and taken for granted by society, can be as challenging in its way as the months of training that athletes undergo to prepare for those moments that propel them into the national or international spotlight.
Retton, the first American woman to win a gold medal in Olympic gymnastics, had advantages that Blair doesn't. For one thing, the experts say,...