Trial by Fire

For months the climax had been build ing. Every meet seemed to produce new headlines, new records, new prodigies. Under challenge, the veterans slowly sweated their way back to top form. Last week 221 teen-agers and oldtimers, the finest group of trackmen in U.S. history, met for two days at Palo Alto, Calif, to struggle for the precious places on the team that will go to the Rome Olympics this August. "The competition will be the best it has ever been," predicted U.S. Olympic Track Coach Larry Snyder. "It has to be."

It was. From start to finish, the two days of internecine battle produced a level of competition every bit as intense and gripping as the Olympics themselves. The brutally simple conditions of the meet guaranteed drama: the first three men in each event made the team; the rest did not. It made no difference if the losers were national champions, previous Olympic gold-medal winners or world record holders. Key survivors of Palo Alto's long trial by fire:

P: The high jump bar was at 7 ft. 3 3/4 in. when Boston University's John Thomas, 19, kicked his right leg at the sky, and bellied over to break his own world record by 1 3/4 in. "I don't know how high I can go," said Thomas later. "I'll let you know some other day."

P: In the 100 meters, Oakland's great Ray Norton, 22, came from behind with his long, driving stride to finish in 10.4 sec. and barely beat out Villanova's Frank Budd. A tie for third made team mem bers of Paul Winder of Morgan State (Md.) and Duke's Dave Sime, the hard-luck star sprinter who pulled a muscle in 1956 and did not make the Olympic squad. In the 200 meters around a turn, Norton again rallied to win going away in 20.5 sec. to tie the world record.

P: Clearing the barriers in graceful stride, Ohio's Glenn Davis, 25, whipped through the grueling 400-meter hurdles in 49.5 sec. to better by 0.6 sec. the Olympic record he tied in 1956 while winning a gold medal.

P: Scissoring frantically through the air, Tennessee A. & I.'s Ralph Boston three times broad-jumped more than 26 ft., the boundary of greatness in the event, finished with a mark of 26 ft. 6 1/2 in., just 1 3/4 in. short of Jesse Owens' world record. "I still haven't got my run down perfect," said Boston. "If I hit it right, I might get that record."

P: Still shaking off the effects of a cold, University of Oregon's Dyrol Burleson, 20, easily moved from back in the pack on the second lap to take the lead in the 1,500 meters, turned on his famed finishing kick to open up a safe margin over Oregon Teammate Jim Grelle, casually glanced over his shoulder in the stretch and won as he pleased in a slow 3:46.9, a full 4.7 sec. off his best time.

P: The meet's most dramatic moment was its very last. Ever since a bad leg kept him off the 1956 Olympic squad, Pole Vaulter Don Bragg, 29, had pointed for the 1960 team. At Palo Alto, Bragg sprinted down the runway, set his pole, hauled hard with his weight lifter's arms, and soared over the bar at 15 ft. 9 1/4 in. to break by an inch the world record of Marine Bob Gutowski. Then started one of the wildest victory dances in track history. Bellowing with delight, Bragg tossed wood shavings in the air, waved his arms about his head and bounded about the field like a dipsy kangaroo. Out of the stands pell-melled Bragg's fiancee, a 5 ft. 4? in., 112-lb. blonde named Terry Fiore, in her hands a rosary that had snapped under the strain. Bragg gleefully flung her over one broad shoulder like a bag of cement and started to dance again. When he had calmed down enough to be coherent, Bragg declared: "I don't want to push the Man Upstairs. All I want is a gold medal in the Olympics, and then Tarzan of the Apes in the movies."

Driven by the competition, the athletes shrugged off injury. Hammer Thrower Hal Connolly, 28, world record holder and 1956 Olympic gold-medal winner, was warming up when he pulled a muscle in the left side of his massive back. Asked Connolly coolly: "Is there a doctor here?" With a shot of novocain in his back, Connolly whirled out a throw of 212 ft. 3 1/2 in. to finish second by 2 ft. 3 1/2 in. to Al Hall, 25, a 205-lb. poultryman from Southington, Conn.

After he had thrown the javelin 269 ft. 7 1/2 in.. Bill Alley, 23, caught his spikes in the grass, pulled a muscle and spiked himself badly in his right calf as he fell. His leg bandaged, Alley limped back to throw six more times, but could not better his first try, finished a gallant second to Marine Lieut. Al Cantello, who had a mark of 277 ft. 7 in. "Oh, I wanted to win, man," said Alley. "I wanted to win."

Some established stars lost out alto gether. Broad Jumper Gregg Bell, 29, a gold-medal winner in the Melbourne Games of 1956, finished a frustrated fourth. Pole Vaulter Bob Gutowski failed to qualify. Toughest of all was the disappointment in the shotput. Army Lieut. Bill Nieder, 26, holds the world record at 65 ft. 7 in. but, hampered by a bad right knee, he reverted to his old line-drive style of toss and managed only a weak 61 ft. 9 3/4 in. to finish fourth behind Dallas Long (63 ft. 3 3/4 in.), Parry O'Brien (62 ft. 3 3/4 in.) and Dave Davis (62 ft. 3 1/2 in.). "Just call me choker, that's all," said Nieder.

Out of the battle of Palo Alto came the finest U.S. Olympic track team in history. But the rest of the world has also improved sharply since 1956's Melbourne Olympics. As a team, Russia will be the biggest threat to the continuing domination of track events by the U.S. With their trials still to come, Russian coaches last week were speaking guardedly of their young stars but praised a pair of sprinters named Leonid Bartenyev and Edwin Ozolin. Other sprinters around the world are also pointing for the U.S., including Germany's Armin Hary and Britain's Peter Radford.

Even so, the U.S. sprinters, who have not lost a gold medal since 1928, seem strong enough to dominate the 100 and 200 meters, and the 400-meter relay. "To beat one American sprinter is possible," says Italy's Dr. Robert Quercetani, president of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians. "But to beat all three is something else again."

The U.S. should win the shotput, pole vault, hammer throw, and high jump, seems likely to take the javelin, discus and broad jump. But South Africa's Mai Spence is rated the world's best in the 400 meters by Europe's experts, and Jamaica's George Kerr will be the man to beat in the 800 meters. Jim Beatty in the 5,000 meters and Dyrol Burleson in the 1,500 meters give the U.S. its strongest candidates in years, but both will go to Rome as long shots against European and Russian distance men.

Looking at the cold statistics in the record books, U.S. Olympic Track Team Chairman Pincus Sober said: "We will face an uphill struggle to amass as many gold medals as we did in Helsinki (14) in 1952 or at Melbourne (15) in 1956.

But, as proved at Palo Alto last week, past records are of little help when trackmen are fighting it out in the stretch. If American athletes rise to the occasion in Rome as they have always done, the U.S. should not fall off the gold standard.

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