Tired but Triumphant

Wearied by its travels, crippled by illness and injury and cumbered by European cooking, the U.S. track and field team nonetheless managed to perform handsomely as it toured across Europe last week. After a 124-111 victory over the Soviet Union in Moscow, the strong men's team moved on to face West Germany's best at Stuttgart, brought off a 120-91 win. Only the ladies--and not all of them--seemed to be having trouble; they lost to the Russians 39-68, to the Germans 38-66.

For the Soviet meet, the U.S. team was in high key, and the two-day competition produced performances of a caliber rarely seen in a non-Olympic year. Willowy Wilma Rudolph tied her world record of 11.3 sec. in the 100-meter dash, anchored the U.S. women's 400-meter relay team to a new world mark of 44.3 sec. Frank Budd swept to a big victory in the men's 100 meters, and helped the men's relay team set another world record, of 39.1 sec. Gary Gubner, muscular 18-year-old New York University freshman, established himself as new Prince of the Whales by putting the shot 60 ft. 7 1/2 in. As a climax, the meet provided the finest display of jumping in track history. The U.S.'s Ralph Boston leaped to a world broad jump mark of 27 ft. 1 3/4 in., and Russia's Valery Brumel soared over the high jump bar at 7 ft. 4 in. to beat U.S. High Jumper John Thomas for the fifth straight time.

The pattern in Germany was similar, but performances were generally poorer --except for Wilma Rudoloh's new record clocking of 11.2 sec. in the 100 meters. Bespectacled Ironman Hayes Jones, 22, of Pontiac, Mich., recalled the days when versatile Harrison Dillard won his specialty--the 110-meter high hurdles--with ease, ran an excellent leg for the winning U.S. 400-meter relay team, then filled in for ailing Sprinter Paul Drayton and placed second in the 100-meter dash. Biggest surprise of the German meet: Sprinter Frank Budd's defeat in the 200 meters by Germany's Manfred Germar.

At week's end, exhausted by the grueling pace, the U.S. team flew off to London and its third international competition in six days. Still ahead: Poland.

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