The Olympics: The Original Ideal

Of all Olympic competition, the decathlon most closely reflects the original Greek ideal of all-round athletic excellence. An entire track and field meet in miniature, its ten events in two days add up to the toughest individual test of speed, stamina, strength and spirit ever devised. The man who wins the Olympic decathlon well deserves to be known as the finest athlete in the world. That man last week was William Anthony Toomey, a 29-year-old schoolteacher from Santa Barbara, Calif., who not only captured the gold medal but set an Olympic record in the process.

Toomey modestly insists that “behind every good decathlon man there’s a good doctor,” and indeed the demands of the brutal competition are enough to strain the strongest body. Kurt Bendlin, West Germany’s world record holder, arrived in Mexico City complaining of two sore knees and tendonitis in one elbow. Toomey had a pulled hip muscle for which he was being treated with cortisone. Even so, in the first test, the 100-meter dash, Toomey hit the tape in 10.4 sec., best time of the day and good enough for 959 points under the complicated decathlon scoring system.* Then, a soaring 25-ft. 9¾-in. long jump, best of Toomey’s career, gave him another 994 points and kept him in the lead. After that, a poor 45-ft. Hin. shotput (“That really depressed me”) and a disappointing 6-ft. 4¾-in. high jump dropped him to second behind East Germany’s Joachim Kirst. Next came the grinding 400-meter run, and after ten straight hours of competition, Toomey somehow managed to sprint the distance in 45.6 sec. It was the fastest time ever recorded in the decathlon—only 1.8 sec. off the new world record—and it put him back in the lead as the first day ended.

Weary, ready for dinner and bed, Bill started to leave the field, only to find that he had one more trial to pass—the urine test. Checkups for dope are now mandatory in the Olympics, and for decathlon athletes the tests were given at the end of each day. Because he was totally dehydrated, Toomey had to hang around the stadium drinking liquids until he could supply officials with a urine sample.

Down to the Last. The second day’s competition began with the 110-meter hurdles, and Bill ran it in 14.9 sec., .3 sec. slower than his best. His discus throw, 143 ft. 31 in., was “near what I wanted,” but the pole vault almost proved a disaster. “I just about had a heart attack when I missed the opening height on my first two attempts,” said Toomey. He pulled himself together to vault 13 ft. 91 in., tying his personal record. A 206-ft. i-in. javelin throw kept him in first place, a bare 61 points ahead of West Germany’s Bendlin, who had moved into second with a monumental heave of 247 ft. 5 in.

Now the gold medal was riding on the last event, the 1,500 meter run. If he could beat Toomey by 10 sec. or so, Bendlin could still win. But he never came close. Gasping in the thin air, every muscle rubbery with fatigue, Toomey led all but a few strides of the way and drove to victory by 30 yds. Final score for the ten events: Toomey 8,193; Bendlin 8,064—a total that dropped the West German to third, behind his countryman Hans-Joachim Walde, who had also run a faster 1,500. “That was the worst competition I’ve ever been in,” said Toomey. “I’ve never had to endure anything so intense. They shouldn’t call this the Olympic Games. It’s not a game out there.”

*Each event is scored on a sliding scale of points, based mainly on recent standards. The point scale is open-ended; theoretically, there is no limit to the score a competitor can receive in any event.