Track Snaps Back

U.S. indoor track was warming up for its first postwar season. A lot of G.I. legs had been reconverted from close-order drill; the inevitable foreign threat was present. To the 4:06.4 indoor mile record there was no immediate threat. The most likely to break it: fleet-footed, but still slightly rusty Les MacMitchell.

After three and a half years in the Navy and one tune-up race, MacMitchell last week picked the Metropolitan A.A.U. 1,000-yard run for his championship debut --and showed that he had momentarily forgotten all he knew about foot racing. He got off to a poor start, tried to make up too much ground too quickly, was caught in traffic jams and bumped off stride. Result: the former N.Y.U. miler came in third--behind Manhattan College's blond Fred Sickinger.

Legs & Heartbeats. Despite that amateurish performance, long wartime absence from competition hadn't hurt MacMitchell's legs. Nor had war increased his slow heartbeat; MacMitchell's still pumped at a tardy 43 beats a minute. What he needed most was crack competition. Ready to oblige: Wisconsin's Walter Mehl, conqueror of Glenn Cunningham, who was out of the Navy and in training; ex-Dartmouth speedster Don Burnham.

The big foreign threat was Marcel Hansenne, France's ace miler, who this week landed in Manhattan, was dead set for a Feb. 2 unveiling in the Millrose mile.

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