Tarzan v. the Tads

Long before he prowled the celluloid jungles, Johnny ("Tarzan") Weissmuller was a national hero. To swimming idolaters of the 1920s, the faces of Babe Ruth, Red Grange and Paavo Nurmi paled before the image of the bronzed, high-cheekboned champion. Sportswriters later acclaimed him as the out standing swimmer of the first half-century, and rightly so. When he retired in 1929, Weissmuller held every freestyle record from 100 yds. to the half mile. And who could forget his showing in the 1928 Olympics, when he devastated his own Olympic 100-meter mark in the breathtaking time of 58.6 sec.?

That clocking would have rated Weissmuller nothing but a spectator's seat at last week's National A.A.U. championships in Lincoln, Neb., where tads the size of his beloved Cheetah smashed five world and eleven meet records. And when they did not break records, they logged times that would have crushed Johnny at his best. Like Mark Spitz, 18, who splashed off with the 100-meter freestyle in 53.6 sec.

Even the girls would have left Tarzan gasping in their wake. Debbie Meyer, 15, the snub-nosed aquabelle from Sacramento, Calif., shattered world records in the 400-meter freestyle (4 min. 26.7 sec.) and 800-meter freestyle (9 min. 17.8 sec.), led Arden Hills Swim Club to another record (8 min. 46.2 sec.) in the 800-meter freestyle relay.

Or Karen Muir, 15, who has the Olympian misfortune to reside in Kimberley, South Africa. "I don't know much about politics," she said quietly, "but I am disappointed the Olympic committee allowed politics to enter sports." Then she showed the world what it will miss in October by breaking the listed world records in the 100-meter backstroke (1 min. 6.9 sec.) and 200-meter backstroke (2 min. 24.3 sec.).

It is a shame that Karen will not be in Mexico City to keep her records afloat. Someone else is likely to sink them. In no other sport do records fall so fast. Last year no fewer than 37 world marks were broken, while only 16 track records were improved. In ten years, two full seconds have been lopped off the 100-meter freestyle record. In track the comparable 400-meter dash mark has dropped only .7 sec.

Of course, there is no other sport in which athletes are officially competing by their eighth birthday. With the phenomenal growth of age-group swimming, there are now some 3,000 clubs tutoring upwards of 275,000 water babies. Starting at the age of six or seven, promising youngsters paddle more than two miles a day to build themselves into racing form. Soon they are competing in club aquacades against others their own age in hopes of winning an A.A.U. badge and national recognition. By the time they are twelve, today's swimmers are accomplished veterans, harder of limb, sounder of lung and infinitely faster than their predecessors.

No one can guess the limits of how fast the youngsters will eventually swim. It is only safe to predict that competitive swimming will create a new breed of tragic hero: the Teen-Age Has-Been.

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