Victory Over Pain

Any day now, somebody may break 4 min. 15 sec. in the mile. But don't count on it: the way the indoor-track season is going, Jesse Owens could prob ably come out of retirement and win two events a night. The best shotputter in the U.S. at the moment is a 34-year-old bank vice president who can't get within 2 ft. of the world's record. The best two-milers include an Arizona sci ence teacher and a Massachusetts busi nessman. And the 4-min. 15-sec. mile is no exaggeration: that is what New Zealand's John Davies clocked when he won the event at the Philadelphia In quirer Games.

All of which makes Pole Vaulter John Pennel the season's one genuinely exciting track performer. So far, Pennel has competed in eleven indoor meets, won in ten, been voted the outstanding athlete in three. Last month, at the Los Angeles Invitational meet, he soared over the bar at 16 ft. 9 1/2 in., to break the world record set in 1963 by Finland's Pentti Nikula. Not bad for a 25-year-old wine salesman who has not prac ticed in more than a year and knows that each time he jumps may be his last.

The fact that Pennel is able to compete at all is amazing. His back has hurt him ever since he was a boy, vaulting over garbage cans with a pipe from a TV antenna. "Sometimes it was so bad that he could not straighten up in the morning," remembers his mother, who tried to help with massages. Doctors at first thought he had just a muscular ailment, so Pennel ignored the pain, went on to set an outdoor record of 17 ft.

3/4 in--later broken by Fred Hansen--and won a place on the U.S. team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Three weeks before the games began he "did something wrong" in practice and the pain became unbearable. The best he could manage in the Olympics was eleventh, and he did not vault again for eight months.

Back home in Miami, doctors finally diagnosed a slipped disk, put Pennel into traction, tried to persuade him to undergo a spinal fusion operation. He refused, and last summer he began competing again-shunning practice sessions as a pointless risk. To protect his spine from "jamming," he now lands flat on his back instead of on his feet, uses his elbows to soften the impact. How much longer he can keep on, Pennel does not know. One thing he does know: "I want that outdoor record back, and I'm going to get it."

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