Frustration and disappointment were etched across Brian Wellman's face.

A sixth-place finish in an Olympic final from a country as small as Bermuda might, in most instances, be cause for celebration. But for an athlete who has helped pioneer his event into a new realm of popularity, collecting gold in the World Indoor Championships and silver in the World Outdoors on the way, Saturday's triple jump final wasn't an occasion to remember.

"I wanted to medal big time,'' confessed the 28-year-old Bermudian afterwards. "And I know I was capable, especially after what happened last year.'' He referred, of course, to his second-place finish at the Worlds in Sweden where Jonathan Edwards shattered the world record.

But in Atlanta's Olympic Stadium, neither Wellman nor Edwards could rediscover the magic of Gothenburg, athough at least the Brit did salvage silver.

Gold went to veteran Kenny Harrison, a rival who Wellman had predicted prior to these Games would be the man to beat. Having taken only three competitive jumps all season because of injury, the 31-year-old American set a new Olympic and American record of 18.09 metres (59 feet, 4 1/4 inches) with his fourth leap. He led from start to finish after an opening effort of 17.99.

Edwards who, like Wellman, fouled out four times -- at least two of them in the 18-metre range -- had a legal best of 17.88 while Cuban Yoelbi Quesada (17.44) took the bronze. Also ahead of the Bermudian were his coach and training partner Mike Conley (17.40) and Armen Martiroysan of Armenia (16.97).

Wellman's best was his opening jump of 16.95 (55 feet, 7 1/2 inches), followed by 16.82, both shorter than his sole qualifying leap on Friday night (17.10) and more than two feet outside his PB.

"I kind of felt things weren't quite right coming in,'' he admitted afterwards. "I never actually put together a track meet where I felt I could go out there and jump 57 feet because I had to.

"I seemed to have a different mental aspect, I wasn't exactly feeling really awesome. There were a couple of things I knew I needed to work on.

"Today my approach was killing me. If you can't get your approach right nothing else is going to happen.'' Wellman conceded that Harrison's opening leap of 17.99 had shaped the event.

"The pressure was on right there. Everybody was fouling after he hit that jump. And it always happens that way. Anybody who jumps that far that early puts the pressure on everybody else because they have to respond and it takes you out of your game plan.

"That's exactly what Kenny did, he dictated the event.'' Yet had Wellman been jumping as consistently and as far as he was a year ago, he has no doubts he could have beaten the American.

"If I was in the same kind of shape I was in Gothenburg, I definitely could have responded tonight, and stepped up and got a medal.

"I mean 17.44 got a bronze. In Gothenburg I was upset when I jumped 17.62 because I knew I was jumping a whole lot further than that. I had some big foul jumps.

"I was there when Jonathan Edwards went crazy and I felt I could go get him.

When you feel like that it's awesome. The guy's done something unprecedented.

Nobody's come close to what he's done in history. And I'm standing there thinking `It's not that far, I can do that.' It's a great feeling.

"But I didn't have that in me tonight. It's frustrating, you come down to your fifth jump and you still haven't put one together.'' While conditions were almost perfect for the jumpers on Saturday night, there were other factors which Wellman felt hampered his concentration and helped determine the outcome.

Two of his jumps coincided directly with the respective starts of the women's and men's 100-metre finals, with the 80,000 capacity crowd turning all of their attention to those events. And in between, as was expected, it was the three Americans, Harrison, Conley and Robert Howard who received almost exclusive support.

"Nothing against the American crowd, but if you didn't have USA on your shirt you could forget about it,'' said Wellman.

"I had the worst time in history. First the women's final and then the men's final. That made it pretty hard to concentrate.'' His Olympics over, Wellman now heads to Europe where he hopes to cement a top-five world ranking before the end of the season.

"I'll just try and finish off the season and do a respectable job, try to get a decent ranking out of the year. We've still got the Grand Prix finals.'' Further down the road, the Bermudian is determined to qualify for his third Olympics in Sydney in 2000.

"Oh absolutely,'' he said. "I want to get that feel of jumping far back again.'' LEAP OF FAITH -- Brian Wellman fell just short in his bid for a medal at the Olympic Games on Saturday night. The Bermuda triple jumper had to settle for sixth place, nearly two feet behind gold medallist Kenny Harrison of the US.

-- Reuter