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August 21, 2004 10:40 am

New Jersey hurdler carries Liberia's hopes

By ELLIOTT DENMAN

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - The weight of Liberia's Olympic aspirations rest on Sultan Tucker's sturdy shoulders.

``I will try not to let any of them down, but I also know that competition will be pretty tough here,'' Tucker said.

Tucker is Liberia's lone male athlete in the Athens Games, though he is a born-and-bred American citizen - a resident of Glassboro, N.J., and a former star at Delsea Regional, N.J., High School and Clemson University. His mother, Naomi Tucker, was born in Liberia, and that maternal tie became his ticket to Liberian eligibility.

He will be a long-long shot in his specialty, the 110-meter high hurdles. ``It'll be a challenge,'' he admits.

Gladys Thompson, a 200-meter sprinter, is as lonely as Tucker in the Olympic Village. She's the only Olympic female athlete for Liberia, a west African nation of 3.3 million citizens.

Fortunately for Tucker and for two other New Jersey buddies on the hurdling circuit, there's plenty of room for flexibility written into the Olympic rules book.

And so the Garden State will be cheering for Dudley Dorival of Ewing Township and Haiti, Todd Matthews-Jouda of Lawrence Township and Sudan, as well as Liberia's Tucker.

Competition for the 56-man field begins Tuesday.

The cream of the crop is headed by Americans Allen Johnson, the 1996 Olympic champion, and Terrence Trammell, the U.S. Trials winner; Xiang Liu of China; Stanislav Olijars of Latvia; and defending Olympic champ Anier Garcia of Cuba.

Dorival is another possible contender. The former University of Connecticut star ran seventh in the Sydney 2000 finals and third in the 2001 World Championships.

``Running in the Olympics is my dream come true,'' said Tucker. ``Every sport in the world, their best is here, and I've always wanted to compete against the best, ever since I first ran the AAU Junior Olympics when I was 13.

``It's all been just an awesome experience so far.''

Tucker starred at Clemson following a string of New Jersey state high school titles.

But this is the Olympics, and Tucker's best 2004 time of 13.74 pales in comparison to Johnson (13.05), Liu (13.06) and Trammell (13.09).

Tucker said he thinks it will take a ``13.6 or 13.7, somewhere around there,'' to reach the quarterfinals.

He's run in pre-Olympic meets in Amsterdam and Malmo. He's done all his homework. He's ready to go.

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