Ohl sneaks into All-Around lead

Friday, Dec. 10, 1999 | 9:23 a.m.

The race has tightened and the head games have begun.

Cody Ohl took over the lead in the All-Around Cowboy world standings by winning Thursday's calf roping go-round at the $4.4 million National Finals Rodeo.

Ohl earned $12,908.71 and pushed his season earnings to $179,416.13 and took a slim $115.41 lead over Fred Whitfield in the All-Around standings. Whitfield, who held a $20,000 lead over Ohl going into the NFR, earned $2,082.05 for sixth place in the go-round and has $179,300.72 in total PRCA earnings this year.

In the battle for the world calf roping title, Whitfield holds a slim $2,998.87 lead over Blair Burk. Ohl is a close third, only $4,345.85 behind Whitfield.

Ohl, the first roper out of the gate, got the job done in seven seconds flat -- a time that none of the 14 other cowboys could top. The two-time defending world calf roping champion said he now is looking forward to not being the first roper in the final three go-rounds.

"I think (Whitfield) is the first roper tomorrow, so I'll get to watch him go," Ohl said. "At the end of the week, it is (an advantage), I think. At the beginning, it's not that big a deal. But I need to try to put pressure on him and make him stub his toe."

Ohl also is counting on getting some help from his competitors, as he did Thursday night when four other cowboys posted better times than Whitfield, who finished sixth.

"At the spot I'm at, I need to win first and the guys that are in between me and Fred, I need them to win whatever they can win and they played some good defense for me tonight," Ohl said. "Blair is right there with us and he's got a good shot to win the world, too, but those other guys helped me out a lot tonight in keeping Fred off of me."

Ohl, from Stephenville, Texas, also moved up one spot, to third, in the NFR average behind Whitfield and Jeff Chapman.

"I just hope I can keep putting the pressure on Fred and see what happens," Ohl said. "Before tonight, I was fourth in the average and I'm going to have to put some pressure on that second- and third-place guy in the average because I need to at least get out of here with second in average and place a couple good more times.

"I lucked out tonight and moved one guy behind me in the average, so I moved up to third -- I'm about two or three seconds out of second now, so I've just got to keep it going."

As much as a third world calf roping title would mean to Ohl, he said he has his sights set squarely on the coveted All-Around championship.

"I've won two world championships here in the calf roping and my dream in life is to win an All-Around," he said. "I had such a good shot coming in ... I'm focused on both, but the All-Around is my big goal.

"Winning the All-Around would mean the world to me. It would open up so many doors for me. Everybody knows who the All-Around world champion is in rodeo and it gets you on a lot of front covers and gets you a lot of exposure, and that's what it's all about."

The pressure of such a close battle is nothing new to Ohl, who won the 1997 calf roping title by a mere $5,000. But he said he would prefer to have the kind of lead he enjoyed last year, when he won the championship by nearly $70,000.

"The first year I won the world, in '97, it was real tight and I won it by about $5,400," Ohl said. "Last year, I had a great year here and won it by $70,000. It's tight again this year and I sure like winning it by a lot more. You sleep a lot better when you know all you've got to do is go make your run and let everybody else follow in behind you."

While he may be accustomed to such pressure at the NFR, that doesn't mean it is any easier to deal with. Ohl said he has spent some sleepless nights since coming to Las Vegas.

"It gets you so pumped up, you wouldn't believe it," Ohl said. "I tried to go to bed early a couple nights this week and it's fighting a losing battle. You don't come off of that night when you do good; it takes four or five hours to get over of it."