Sport: Pride and Precocity

TWO more dissimilar Olympians would be hard to imagine. Al Oerter is 32 and white, a hulking 260-pounder who lives with his wife and two children on suburban Long Island and works as supervisor of the computer communications department at Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. Bob Beamon is 22, black and bearded, a gangling 160-lb. product of the streets of New York who attends the University of Texas at El Paso on a track scholarship—and says that he would rather be playing basketball. Last week in Mexico City, each in his own way demonstrated what the Olympic Games are all about. Oerter, the proud veteran, hurled the discus 212 ft. 6½ in., five feet farther than he had ever thrown it in his life. He set a Games record and became the first trackman ever to win his event in four successive Olympics. Beamon, the precocious newcomer, competing in his first Olympics, leaped 29 ft. 2½ in. on his very first try, to smash the world long-jump record by an improbable margin of almost 2 ft.

“There is a special inspiration at the Olympics,” says Oerter. It is an inspiration that has driven him to triumph over his own physical limitations. Not once has Oerter gone to an Olympics as a favorite. In 1956 at Melbourne, the U.S.’s Fortune Gordien was picked to win; in 1960 at Rome, Rink Babka, another American, expected to take the gold medal; in 1964 at Tokyo, CzechoSlovakia’s Ludvik Danek was the reigning world recordholder. Last week the man to beat was the U.S.’s Jay Silvester, who only a month before had broken the world mark with a prodigious heave of 224 ft. 5 in. Oerter defeated them all, despite the fact that ever since 1963 he has been suffering from a slipped cervical disc that causes him agony and forces him to wear a surgical collar when he competes. In the Olympics, however, he takes the collar off. “These are the Olympics,” he explains. “You die for them.”

At Tokyo, Oerter had more than a bad neck to bother him; he was hemorrhaging from a ripped rib cartilage, and still he set an Olympic mark of 200 ft. 1½ in. In Mexico City, he slipped in the rain-soaked discus ring and tore a thigh muscle. Relaxants and ice treatments numbed the pain for the finals, and on his third toss he won his fourth gold medal. Oerter immediately began thinking ahead to Munich in 1972—and the possibility of a fifth title. “I think I can continue to improve until I’m 40 or so,” he said.

The Olympic long jump was supposed to be a two-man contest between the U.S.’s Ralph Boston and Russia’s Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, coholders of the world record (27 ft. 4¾ in.). Beamon’s unpolished jumping style made purists shudder and write off as a fluke his indoor world record of 27 ft. 2¾ in. last March. Sometimes he took off from his right foot, sometimes from his left. He often did not bother to count his strides on the approach. In the qualification trials, he fouled on his first two jumps and barely made it to the finals on his last try.

All of which hardly promised one of the most phenomenal single performances in track and field history. In 1935, Jesse Owens set a long-jump mark of 26 ft. 8¾ in. that stood for 25 years. Since 1960, Boston and Ter-Ovanesyan have between them broken the record six times, but managed to increase it by a grand total of only 8½ in. Then came Beamon. He charged down the runway and powered off the board, hands and arms flapping like a giant awkward bird. His body jackknifed, his legs spread-eagled before he slammed into the pit. When the Scoreboard flashed the result, the crowd gasped with disbelief. Beamon sank to his knees, hands clasped in prayer. “I was thanking that man up there,” he explained, “for letting me hit the ground right here.”