Sport: Out of the Backwash

“The world’s greatest third-string swimmer” was the label that sportwriters stuck on slight .(5 ft. 8 in., 150 Ibs.) Wayne Moore soon after he began swimming for Yale three years ago. On anybody else’s team, Moore would have been a fast-stroking standout. But at Yale his talent was submerged at first in the backwash of two spectacular teammates: Australia’s John Marshall, holder of the world 440-yd. free-style record, and Jimmy McLane, who, as an Andover schoolboy of 17, became the 1948 Olympic 1,500-meter freestyle champion. Last week, after a lengthening string of victories over Marshall and McLane, Yale’s newly elected Team Captain Moore, 20, finally kicked the “third-stringer” tag far into his own foamy wake.

At the 50-meter pool on the old New York World’s Fair grounds, Swimmer Moore plunged into the water for the final 400-meter free-style heat of the U.S. Olympic tryouts. Marshall, who will compete for Australia in the Olympics, was not in the run, but Jimmy McLane was, and so was Ohio State’s wiry Hawaiian star, Ford Konno, one of the world’s best free-style swimmers. Splashing immediately into the lead, Yale’s Moore cut the water like a hungry shark. At the 100-meter mark he led Yale Teammate McLane by two feet, at the 200-meter mark by four, at the 300-meter mark by six.

At the finish, Jimmy McLane had swum the fastest 400 meters of his life. But Moore was faster. With McLane nine feet behind him, Wayne had covered the distance in 4 min. 36.2 sec., nearly five seconds under the Olympic record. Only three swimmers have ever beaten Wayne’s time: Japan’s Hironoshin Furuhashi, Australia’s Marshall and Ohio’s Konno, who surprised most tryout watchers last week by having to thrash desperately to squeeze out his third place and Olympic berth behind Moore and McLane.

Other outstanding qualifiers for U.S. Olympic water teams:

¶The Army Medical Corps-sawed-off (5 ft. if in.) Major Samuel (“Sammy”) Lee, 1948 Olympic high (10-meter) diving champion, who, though aging (31) and not quite up to his old form, easily won the No. 1 berth in his event with 842.65 points.

¶The University of Texas-carrot-topped junior, David (“Skippy”) Browning, 21, first-or second-place taker in every national springboard (3-meter) diving meet since 1948, a perfectionist who showed almost splashless style last week in piling up his winning 1,037.45 points.

¶The El Segundo (Calif.) Swimming Club, whose rough & tumble water-polo team won the right to represent the U.S. by knocking off the New York Athletic Club team, 5 to 2.

¶ Michigan State’s lanky economics senior Clarke Scholes, 21, who tied the Olympic record (set in 1948) to take first place in the 100-meter free-style final in 57.3 seconds.

¶ University of Iowa senior Bowen Stass-forth, who clipped more than three seconds off the Olympic 200-meter breaststroke mark to finish in 2 min. 36.1 sec.

¶ Ohio State’s Yoshi Oyakawa, 18, who won first place in the 100-meter backstroke in 1 min. 5.7 sec., two-tenths of a second faster than the Olympic mark set in 1936 by the U.S.’s Adolph Kiefer.