The monogram on his white, lustrous sweat suit proclaims "King Carl."
At least in some ways, it's still true. At 32, Carl Lewis remains one of track and field's reigning superstars."I love for people to say I'm dead, it's over for me. That inspires me to do better," Lewis said Sunday after anchoring the Santa Monica Track Club's 800-meter relay team to a world record time of 1 minute, 18.68 seconds.
"I like letting everybody know I'm still around. Being 32 is just great," he added with a big smile.
Lewis, Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell and Floyd Heard rewrote their world mark of 1:19.11 in the 4x200 relay, set in April 1992 in Philadelphia.
Sunday's sprint relays at the Mount San Antonio College Relays took on some added intrigue when Dennis Mitchell predicted he and his World All-Star teammates would give Lewis & Co. a run for their money.
They did, particularly in the 400-meter relay early in the day, with Lewis barely outrunning Mitchell in the final 100 meters to give the Santa Monica team a narrow victory.
Then in the 800, Mitchell and the same runners - John Drummond, Tony Jarrett and John Regis - helped force Santa Monica's quick pace by running a 1:19.10 that beat the old world standard.
Regis, some eight meters behind Lewis when he got the baton for the anchor leg, never came close to Lewis, but Regis was clocked unofficially with a 19.1-second leg, to Lewis' 19.4.
"I know I'd been complaining about not having anybody to run against," Lewis said. "Well, we had some competition this time and it was fun.
"We knew this team had the potential to run a time like that. We had the competition here and that really helped."
Mitchell, who has run on national teams with Lewis and the others, offered a good-natured challenge last week, predicting the Santa Monica Relay team might not have it so easy. He noted that Lewis usually was far ahead by the time he got the baton in the 400 relay, saying, "He looks nice and pretty then. I want to see him grit his teeth a little bit."
After that race Sunday, Lewis said, "I shouldn't have taken the time to look over (at Mitchell) at the finish, but I wanted to show my teeth."
Santa Monica was clocked in 37.79 in the 400, the fastest at that distance ever on U.S. soil.
Lewis, owner of seven Olympic gold medals, and his Santa Monica teammates beat the 37.83 clocking by a team anchored by Lewis in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. That was the previous fastest time for the relay in the United States.
At Mount SAC, the World All-Stars finished just .03 second behind.
"After that, we knew the second relay was going to be a tight race," said Marsh, who ran leadoff for Santa Monica in both relays and also won the men's 100 meters with a 10.00 clocking. "I wasn't as ready for the second relay as I wanted, but it worked out OK. Now I'm tired."
Marsh, Burrell and Lewis already own a share of the world record in the 400 relay, a 37.40 in the Barcelona Olympics, with Mitchell in that group instead of Heard. Mitchell also was on a U.S. national team with Burrell, Drummond and Andre Cason that equaled that time last year.