Sport: The Olympics

It was a week of fantastic emotional ups and downs. Favorites fell by the dozen. Unknowns won fame. Under the tension, tempers rose: a Japanese official accused a Bulgarian wrestler of throwing a match to a Russian, who thereby beat out a Yugoslav for a gold medal; on British complaints, 15 boxing referees and judges were fired for incompetence; some U.S. officials and athletes wailed with alarm at early defeats. But not even the acrimony could obscure the brilliance of the athletes themselves in Rome.

At week’s end, as expected, the big squads of Russia and the U.S. stood one-two in the unofficial team standings in the 1960 Olympic Games. Top moments of the Olympics’ second week: ¶ In the high jump, the U.S. thought it had its surest gold medal candidate: Boston University’s lithe John Thomas, 19. holder of the world record at 7 ft. 31n. Confident as ever, Thomas seemed reluctant even to take off his sweat suit for early jumps. When the competition began in earnest. Thomas seemed safe enough. The best man of the challenging trio of Russians had never gone over 7 ft. | in. But as the bar rose steadily, Thomas began to peer nervously at the Russians. All four cleared 7 ft. 31n. Then Robert Shavlakadze and Valery Brumel made it over 7 ft. 1 in. to break the Olympic record by 2 in. Twice Thomas missed. The stadium lights were on when he began his third try. His form was as smooth as ever, his right leg kicked for the sky—and he seemed to be over. Then his trailing left leg swept the bar down, and the U.S. suffered its most astonishing defeat at the Rome Olympics. The eventual winner at 7 ft. 11n. was Shavlakadze (because of fewer misses in all jumps than Brumel). Said Thomas: “I don’t have any alibis—I was beaten fair and square.”

¶In the private U.S. preserve of the shot put, the first man that Army Lieut. Bill Nieder. 26. had to beat was himself. Though he held the world record (65 ft. 10 in.). Nieder had often been erratic under pressure, had flopped badly at the Olympic trials and made the team only when Qualifier Dave Davis hurt his wrist. California’s Parry O’Brien, 28, two-time Olympic champion, delighted in calling Nieder “a cow pasture thrower” given to choking in the big events. But after hitting 67 ft. 1 in. in practice. Nieder was the picture of confidence as he strode into the arena wearing a jaunty yellow straw hat bought especially to rattle his rivals: “I decided to do a little ‘psyching’ of my own.” Rocketing across the ring, Nieder got off a put of 64 ft. 6| in. to break O’Brien’s Olympic record by 3 ft. 7! in. Puffing mightily, O’Brien finished second with 62 ft. 8| in., a bare 4 in. ahead of Arizona’s 20-year-old Dallas Long. O’Brien tarried only long enough to give Nieder a handclasp and the thin sliver of a smile, then retreated to the stands where he admitted candidly: “School’s out. Parry choked.”

¶In swimming, the U.S. had a marvelous week. Three days after she had finished second to Australia’s Dawn Fraser in the 100 meters, California’s blonde Chris von Saltza, 16, left her rival floundering back in fifth place as she won the 400 meters in 4:50.6 to smash the Olympic record by three full seconds. Anchorman Jeff Farrell, 23, kept out of the 100-meters freestyle by a July appendicitis attack, boiled through the water to bring home world records in the 400-meter medley relay (4:05.4) and 800-meter freestyle relay (8:10.2). Bobbing like a porpoise, Indiana’s Mike Troy, 19. windmilled through the grueling 200-meter butterfly in 2:12.8 to break his world record by .4 sec. In two major races, Australia’s Murray Rose won the 400-meters and Teammate John Konrads swam off with the 1,500-meters. But when all the events were done, the U.S. men and women had routed the strong Australians by the margin of nine gold medals to five, cracked nine Olympic and six world records. “Our trackmen came here to beat their opponents,” said one U.S. official. “Our swimmers came here to eat them alive.” <J In the broad jump, Mississippi’s Ralph Boston, 21, complained about his form (“I still can’t get my feet together”), but soared 26 ft. 7! in. to break by 2| in. the Olympic record Jesse Owens set in 1936. Fighting for second place, Army Lieut. Bo Roberson, 25. a former Cornell halfback, was trailing Russia’s Igor Ter-Ovanesyan when he got off the greatest jump of his life on his last try to hit 26 ft. 7| in. for a silver medal. Watching his record broken by the two Americans. Owens cracked: “Well, there goes another old friend.”

¶ In the women’s 100 meters, Tennessee’s willowy Wilma Rudolph, 20, tied the Olympic and world record of 11.3 in early heats, then zoomed away from the field in the finals to finish in n sec. flat (a time invalidated for a world record by a tail wind). First U.S. girl to win the event since 1936, Wilma made another conquest in Rome: she wandered about Olympic Village hand-in-hand with U.S. Sprinter Ray Norton, who was having his troubles on the track.

¶In the eight-man rowing final a fast-stroking German crew, using revolutionary, shovel-shaped oars, defeated Canada by three-quarters of a length, left the U.S. Naval Academy’s rowers adrift in fifth place. For the U.S. the loss was the first in the event since 1912. <J In the hammer throw, California’s mighty Hal Connolly, 29, stunned the crowd by failing in the qualifying rounds with a weak toss of 208 ft. yf in., which fell 22 ft. 11 in. short of his world record. Proof of the caliber of competition at Rome: Connolly’s losing throw was still a foot better than the Olympic record he set in 1956. Winner of the event was Russia’s Vasily Rudenkov at 220 ft. 1% in. ¶In the men’s 200 meters, a lanky Italian chemistry student named Livio Berut-ti, 21, rocked U.S. prestige by tying the world record of 20.5 sec. and finishing a stride in front of Ohio’s Les Carney, whose time of 20.6 tied the 1956 Olympic record. The U.S. had not lost the event since 1928. After plodding home dead-last in sixth place, California’s Ray Norton admitted that the pressure in Rome was just too much for him: “Nothing is wrong with me physically. I’m just tied up like a knot inside.”