Records All Around

The saddest thing about the ruckus raised by Tommie Smith and John Carlos was that it dulled the lustre of a superlative track and field meet in which the U.S. once again demonstrated that it is the world's best. The Star-Spangled Banner was played so often that it began to sound like The Stars and Stripes Forever.

As they kept the band working, Americans set record after record. Texas' strapping Randy Matson won the shotput and set an Olympic record of 67 ft. 10 3/4 in.; California's Bob Seagren soared to another new Olympic mark by clearing 17 ft. 8 1/2 in. in the pole vault. In the short dashes, California's Jim Hines clocked 9.9 sec. in the men's 100 meters to tie his own pending world record, and Georgia's Wyomia Tyus won the women's 100 in 11 sec. flat. Then, in the field events, there was Al Oerter's fourth straight discus victory and Bob Beamon's incredible long jump (see box).

Swimming and diving were also dominated by the U.S. By week's end, three events had been held, and Americans had won all three--two of them, the men's 400-meter freestyle relay and the women's 400-meter medley relay, in world-record times. The U.S. basketball team was still unbeaten, heading for a showdown with the Soviet Union. But there are 19 sports in the 1968 Olympics--more than enough to give athletes from the rest of the world an opportunity to make their marks. And they did. Four of the best so far:

> Russia's Victor Kurentsov, 27, a blond Soviet Army lieutenant who has been working out with weights since he was nine years old, set an Olympic record in the press by lifting 336 Ibs. He followed that with a world record of 413 1/4 Ibs. in the clean and jerk to win the middleweight championship.

> Sweden's Bjoern Perm, 24, a 5-ft. 11-in., 159-lb. university student from Stockholm, rode, fenced, shot, swam and ran his way to victory in the modern pentathlon, a quasi-military test of skill and stamina that many experts consider to be even more demanding than the decathlon. After four days of brutal competition, Perm ran 4,000 meters across country in 14 min. 25.7 sec. to edge Hungary's Andras Balczo for the gold medal by the thin margin of 11 points.

> France's Pierre Trentin, 24, a leatherworker from Creteil, a Paris suburb, was given "not a chance" to win the 1,000-meter cycling race by his own nation's sports newspaper, L'Equipe. From a standing start, he pedaled the distance in 1 min. 3.91 sec.--averaging 35 m.p.h.--to earn himself both the gold medal and a world record.

> Poland's Jerzy Pawlowski, 35, for all his slight stature and bald head, came to Mexico City as a latter-day D'Artagnan: in three previous Olympics he had won three silver medals in fencing and one bronze. This time he took a gold medal, winning 18 out of 20 bouts and the individual saber championship.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.