Sport: Olympic Shoplifter

For five days, the visiting Russian athletes had a high old time. Every morning they trained for the pre-Olympic track meet at London’s White City Stadium. There was steak for breakfast, baskets of fruit, great bowls of yoghurt. There was also time for sightseeing, movies (Cinerama Holiday, Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush) and, best of all, shopping.

Shopping meant bargain hunting, for the visitors had only £5 (about $14) pocket money apiece. Discus Thrower Nina Ponomaryeva, 27, a Russian gold-medal winner at the 1952 Olympics, cased the shop windows along Oxford Street with an eager eye, for Nina always tried to make the most of her bulky (185 Ibs.) charms. Like her movie namesake, Ninotchka, she was fascinated by bourgeois hats. The cut-rate merchandise at C. & A. Modes, Ltd. seemed just what she wanted: among the 305. felt flowerpots, the cheap berets, the fluffy wool stocking caps there must be a creation that would be the envy of her home-town friends in Sverdlovsk (pop. 550,000) on the eastern slopes of the Urals.

Chromatic Collection. Nina poked around in the bright jumble on the C. & A. counters and latched on to five natty little numbers—a chromatic collection of feathered “half hats” in mauve, yellow, black and white, and a pert red wool beanie. The whole lot came to £1 12s. 11 d. ($4.61). The next thing anyone knew, the hats were in her shopping bag and Nina was in the hands of some hard-eyed store detectives who decided that she had failed to go through the capitalistic formality of paying. Naturally, Nina couldn’t understand a word. And no one in the store could understand Nina. So the whole argument was moved to a police station. There Nina was charged with shoplifting, ordered to appear in court next day, and released on £5 bail.

Next morning Magistrate Clyde Wilson droned impatiently through his work —five prostitutes, two drunks, three alleged sex offenders, etc. But no Nina. Convinced that the accused had taken it on the lam, Magistrate Wilson issued a warrant for her arrest. With belated efficiency, police staked out the Soviet embassy, but by then there was reason to believe that their girl had tried a non-Olympic event, the running pierhead jump, and was safely on a Russian freighter heading for home.

Dirty Provocation. Ignoring the implications of Nina’s flight, Soviet embassy officials finally got around to giving their version of her troubles. Nina had bought the hats, they said, paid for them and walked off without a receipt.

The Soviet team was satisfied with their embassy’s version. They called off the meet, said that “this dirty provocation was aimed at blackmailing this world-famous sportswoman.” Added a Soviet spokesman: “Our team will play only if your government drops this silly frameup.”

Some British press reactions were odd. The Daily Worker seemed cross with the Russians for canceling the meet, while conservative papers were cross with the Foreign Office for its handling of the case. But officials were powerless to alter the stern demands of British justice, and Soviet sportsmen refused to reconsider their withdrawal from the track meet. Someone at the Soviet embassy kept the controversy on the front pages by booking air passage from London to Copenhagen in the name of Nina Ponomaryeva, but no one who even looked like Nina made the plane.

At week’s end Nina was nowhere to be found, and her teammates were packing for their trip home. Said straight-faced Head Coach Gabriel Korobkov: “This is a sorry blow for sports. We are not political—well, we are only a little political. We must now revise our entire Olympic training plans.”