SEOUL, South Korea -- One by one, led by Rosa Mota of Portugal, they stepped off the track and down a flight of stairs.
A young Irish runner needed support on each arm to negotiate the trip. Maria Lelut of France doubled over and put her head in her arms. A petite Japanese woman was swallowed up in a tidal wave of reporters and photographers. A Norwegian sought neither triumph nor tribute, only a bathroom.
Then there was Lourdes Klitzkie, a 48-year-old grandmother-professor from Guam. She arrived with flowers in her hair.
'I always run with a flower in my hair,' she said. 'People in Guam say where are you going to get flowers here. I tell them Korea has flowers.'
Maybe not the plumeria of her island home in the Pacific. But the golden chrysanthemums she bought at the athletes village did just fine in the pollution and sunshine Friday when the women's Olympic marathon wound through Seoul.
'Lou, with her flower,' said Mariana Ysrael, a Guam marathoner and UCLA medical student. 'Who could miss her?'
Klitzkie, the oldest runner in the field, said entering Olympic Stadium was 'like heaven.' She completed the course in 3 hours, 25 minutes, 32 seconds. It was her best marathon, an hour behind Mota's winning time. Klitzkie placed 63rd among 64 runners who made it to the end.
'I always finish,' she said.
Klitzkie spoke in the bowels of Olympic Stadium. Her hands clung to blue and gray running shoes, a towel, aviator glasses and a cup of diet soda. She stood barefoot with a nasty blister on the ball of her left foot. On top of her hand, written in ink, were split times to pace herself.
'The crowd gave me a tremendous boost,' she said. 'I'd go past them a little faster. They were laughing and I'd laugh back.'
Klitzkie has a mane of black curls. She also has a hard time convincing other runners of her age. She says they can't believe she's past 30. Klitzkie is not the most ancient mariner at these Olympics. That distinction belongs to Durward Knowles, 69, a yachtsman from the Bahamas.
'I'm not ashamed of my age,' she said. 'It makes me feel proud.'
Klitzkie began marathon racing at 39 -- 'a lot of people retire then; I started' -- out of boredom. She was living in Albuquerque, N.M., and her husband was studying for the bar exam in California.
'I needed to let off steam,' she said. 'All my friends were gone. I was alone.'
She trains 85 to 90 miles a week in Guam, including 20 to 24 miles on Sundays, beginning 4 a.m. Klitzkie has raced in 14 marathons and wishes she had begun a lot earlier. Had that been the case, she says she might now be hitting the times Mota does. Some question whether someone belongs in the Olympics with a time a full hour slower than the winner's. Klitzkie has no doubt.
'It's not only who wins medals,' she said. 'It's the participation; the spirit among the athletes.'
Guam, with a population of 120,000, is competing in the Summer Olympics for the first time, as are American Samoa, Aruba, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cook Islands, Maldives, North Yemen, St. Vincent and Vanuatu. The opening ceremony was not lost on Klitzkie.
'It was an experience I'll never forget,' she said. 'It was so beautiful. I was happy to be part of it. I had tears in my eyes.'
Spain surrendered Guam to the United States in 1898 following the Spanish-American War. It became a U.S. territory in 1950 and advertises itself as the spot where the sun rises on American land. The island lies 1,500 miles southeast of the Philippines and 3,000 west of Hawaii.
'I never dreamed of the Olympics,' Klitzkie said. 'In Guam, the Olympics are not that close to us.'
Guam brought a 19-member team to Seoul. Its other two women marathoners -- Julie Ogborn and Ysrael -- finished 59th and 64th, respectively. The hard-core marathoners on the territory number about 25. The island raised Olympic money by selling T-shirts and pins.
'In Guam, we don't see all the people we see here,' Klitzkie said.
This will all change in another week. She has to get back to work. She is an associate professor in special education, teaching the physically disabled and mentally retarded. She took a three-week leave to come to Seoul. But Klitzkie has this other full-time job as well.
'I'll run,' she said, 'until I die.'
