A Glittering Quest for Gold

Cheered on by a wildly whooping and whistling crowd of 70,000, the United States' Bruce Jenner grimaced his way across the finish line late last Friday afternoon to claim the one Olympic honor more precious than gold: the title of "the world's greatest athlete."

With the waning light shining on his flapping chestnut hair, the beautifully sculpted Jenner had powered his way through the 1,500 meters, the last of the ten labors that make up the taxing, two-day decathlon competition. Too uproariously happy to notice that he had left several contestants crumpled about him in pain on the track, Jenner jogged, danced and leaped through his victory lap. Then embracing his tearfully grinning wife Chrystie, he exulted: "It's all over. We did it!" With the single-minded ambition that distinguishes Olympic champions--a characteristic that the two-week extravaganza in Montreal brought vividly to an audience of a billion people--the 26-year-old Jenner had achieved a goal set four years ago at Munich: that he would beat Soviet Champion Nikolai Avilov in 1976.

A fierce beating it was. By the end of the first day, the only question that remained was by how much Jenner would break Avilov's world record of 8,454. The powerfully built (6 ft. 2 in., 195 lb.) Jenner had run faster, thrown farther and jumped higher and longer than ever in his life. "I'm sitting pretty," he said, with typical elan. "All I have to do is show up tomorrow."

Avilov, now 28 and competing in his third Olympics, seemed nonplused; he had achieved personal bests in three of the first day's five events, but to little avail. At one point while loosening up he threw back his head like a high-spirited trotter and passed Jenner without a glance. Perhaps he was thinking that hubris such as Jenner's classically precedes defeat. But Jenner, a camera-courting athlete who thinks Montreal may lead to Hollywood, is a blithe and buoyant modern man. FEET, DON'T FAIL ME NOW read the baby blue T shirt that he wore instead of his official red warm-up top. And they did not.

Total Artistry. On Friday, Jenner roared through the five final events with a combination of speed and strength almost incomparably greater than any decathlon man before him. Smashing Avilov's record by 164 points, Jenner surpassed the long-presumed Olympic absolute of 8,500 points to score an astounding 8,618. Avilov, with 8,367 points, even gave up the silver medal, which went to West Germany's Guido Kratschmer.

"It takes a decathlon athlete to truly appreciate what Jenner has done," summed up 1968 Decathlon Gold Medalist Bill Toomey. "It was total artistry, a beautiful composition." Citing the controlled intensity of Jenner's performance, Toomey added: "He was like a hand grenade ready to explode. And he held the pin until the Olympics. He was hungry, extremely motivated. That element was missing from a lot of American performances."

A mano a mono struggle between Russia and America for the title of "the world's greatest athlete" would have been an apt climax for many past Olympics. But at Montreal, it seemed almost atavistic. Gone, at least for now, are the days when the superpowers smugly split up the men's track and field medals between them, leaving only scrap iron for the satellites of sport. The victors' list last week read like a Rand McNally index, with 13 nations sharing the 23 gold medals (a division of spoils that might have been even wider had the Africans been competing). Mexico, Cuba and Trinidad fielded their first champions, and Guy Drut brought France its only gold since 1956 when he popped over the last 110-meter hurdle like a champagne cork at a Paris party. Hungary heard its anthem played; and so did Sweden, Finland and Jamaica. New Zealand got its totally expected victory from John Walker in the 1,500, but in a dawdling time of 3:39.18. Hirsute Hammer Thrower Yuri Sedyh brought the Soviet Union its first of two golds. The U.S. bagged six, the same as Munich and down six from the halcyon days of Mexico City. Which made it fitting that, with two weeks of successes behind them, an East German enjoyed the Olympics' last lap. Marathon Winner Waldemar Cierpinski circled the Stadium in splendid isolation, well ahead of favored Frank Shorter of the U.S.

Two runners dominated the track events, giving their foes double trouble. One was a horse: Cuba's 6-ft. 3-in., 185-lb. Alberto Juantorena. The other, a wraith: Finland's 5-ft. 11-in., 132-lb. Lasse Viren. Between them they not only took four gold medals, they wrote unprecedented achievements into the record book.

When Juantorena, a 24-year-old graduate student in economics, followed up his world-record performance in the 800 meters (1:43.5) with a win four days later in the 400 meters, he achieved a double rarely attempted in the Olympics, and never before successfully. The two races have different physical demands--the 400 needs more speed, the 800 more strength--and because of the qualifying heats, require a runner to turn in seven world-class performances in seven days. None of this fazed Juantorena, whose biggest hazard might have been a crick in the neck--he kept looking over his shoulder for opposition.

In the 800, the U.S.'s Rick Wohlhuter thought the muscular Cuban had played right into his hands by speeding up the race when there were still 400 meters to go. But when Wohlhuter, usually a consummate 800 strategist, tried to overtake him as they turned into the final stretch, Juantorena just kept pouring it on. Wohlhuter fell back to third place in fatigue, his face contorted with pain and defeat as Juantorena muscled across the finish line and then skipped on in celebration.

In the 400 it was Fred Newhouse of the U.S. who watched helplessly as Juantorena burst past him in the last 20 meters. "He ain't God," said Newhouse, "but he's good." "He's what the future of running is going to be," said Mai Whitfield, gold medal winner in the 800 for the U.S. in 1948 and 1952. "He had no respect for nobody. He just went out there and started smoking."

Barefoot Cheek. On Friday afternoon, gaunt, bearded Lasse Viren became the first man ever to win the 5,000-and 10,000-meter races in successive Olympics. After dogging Portugal's Carlos Sousa Lopes for most of the grueling 10,000-meter final on Monday, Viren shot past him with a lap to go and then loped his light-footed way to a 30-meter lead at the finish line. As he ran a barefoot victory lap with his Tiger track shoes raised high above his head,* the 27-year-old policeman was paced by five ecstatic, flag-waving Finns who had hopped over a 6-ft. rail to join him. Four days later the distance was half as far, but the result was the same. In the last lap, Viren sprinted to the front and glided off from his challengers to win handily. Moments later he announced that he would try the marathon the next day, though he had never run one before. It was a game try through driving rain--to a good fifth-place finish.

Viren seems to bring himself to peak form only for Olympic Games. His track achievements since Munich have been minimal, but he began hard training this spring, spending weeks in Kenya and South America, where he could find both warm weather and high altitude. Now he is a national hero once again. Headlined one paper: VIREN HAS COME IN FROM THE COLD.

In the rural community of Myrskyla, where Viren was born and raised, his mother had to clear her living room of a jungle of congratulatory flowers so that she could have an unobstructed view of her television for the later races. Indeed, the two flower shops in Myrskyla (pop. 2,300) were sold out within hours of the 10,000-meter race, and the chairman of the communal council had to postpone his official visit of congratulation until a fresh supply arrived. After Viren won his medals at Munich, the community gave him a plot of land and raised money to help build a house on it. Now there is talk of giving him an island.

Less rewarding, according to some U.S. gold medalists, was their lot at home. Their refrain became a familiar--and unsettling--one at the Games. "America expects its athletes to wave a flag and win a medal every four years," complained Discus Champion Mac ("Wolfman") Wilkins. "But then you're supposed to take off that silly underwear and go out and make a decent living." Long-Jump Winner Arnie Robinson, whose wife Cynthia held down two jobs so that he could devote the past three years to training, warned, "There will be some big surprises in 1980, when we win even less than we did this year." Urging Government subsidies of $10,000 a year for top U.S. amateurs, Robinson added, "It's tough to beat athletes from other countries when they are kept like professionals." One U.S. gold medalist who disagreed was 400-meter Hurdler Edwin Moses (47.64 sec.), a physics major at Morehouse College in Atlanta. His view: "I run because I like it."

Grudge Match. Another sport in which a confrontation of superpowers got sidetracked was men's basketball. Yugoslavia upset Russia in the semifinals 89-84, thus depriving the U.S. of a chance to avenge the 1972 team's infamous last-second, one-point loss to the Soviet Union. The basketball final was still a grudge match of sorts, but the spirit of vindication was directed less at the Yugoslavs than at doomsayers in the U.S. who had predicted that this year's team was too short (average height: 6 ft. 6 in.) and too Southern (seven players and a coach from the Atlantic Coast Conference). "All of the complaining back home cut into the pride of the players," said victorious Coach Dean Smith of North Carolina University. "That was a greater motivational factor than the 1972 defeat."

Smith himself was a substantial motivator. He drove his players hard and they liked it. One U.S. workout last week was a brutal 75 minutes of top-speed action. The squad was divided into two basic units that were rotated to keep maximum pressure on opponents, a ploy that proved highly successful. Smith studied 14 reels of film on the Yugoslavs, another 20 reels on the Russians, and preceded each practice session with a movie show.

The gold medal result seemed assured long before U.S. Team Captain Quinn Buckner of Indiana University boogalooed the ball downcourt in the last seconds of the 95-74 rout of Yugoslavia in the finals. Except for a 95-94 squeaker over a scrappy Puerto Rican team whose backcourt had been largely trained in the schoolyards of New York, the U.S. romped through the tournament, dazzling opponents with laser-beam passing, intrepid rebounding, brazen ball stealing and an irksomely tenacious defense.

Their shooting? Despite taking out 3 1/2 min. to tend a seven-stitch gash that had been elbowed into his right eyebrow by a rebounding Yugoslav, Adrian Dantley fired in a game-high 30 points. Lamented Canadian Coach Jack Donohue after his team's 95-77 debacle against the U.S. in the semifinals: "The Americans are like a Sherman tank. They just keep coming at you."

Five of the six teams playing in the first women's basketball tournament in Olympic history had to reconcile themselves to the fact that the gold medal was nearly a foot out of their reach--in the hands, that is, of Russia's 7-ft. 2-in., 281-lb. center, Uliana Semenova. Backed up by four teammates who stood 6 ft. 5 in. or more, the awesome Semenova, who maintained a kind of awkward dignity as she lumbered up and down the court, so overpowered her opponents that only the scrappy Japanese team was able to end up within a respectable 23-point distance (98-75) of the Soviets. Despite losses to Russia and Japan, a feisty U.S. team won the silver.

The closest thing to an old-fashioned display of American might took place in the boxing ring at the new saucer-shaped Maurice Richard Arena. Letting fists fly in flamboyant style, a showboating young squad of Ali-inspired Americans sent six of its eleven members into the Saturday-night finals--a total matched only by the other boxing powerhouse of the Games, Cuba.

Boundless Bravado. The flashiest U.S. fighter was Light Welterweight "Sugar Ray" Leonard, a 20-year-old dazzler from Palmer Park, Md. An A.A.U. and Golden Gloves champion, Leonard has a kind of snake charmer's style that seems to numb his opponents into passivity. Typical was his quarterfinals match. Angered by a close decision that went against a teammate, Leonard pranced into his own bout doing "the Palmer Park shuffle" and immediately unleashed a flurry of blows that he later described as "for Davey, my parents, my girl friend and the people of the United States." The assault left his East German opponent befuddled for two rounds. By the third, the revived East German had figured out that Sugar Ray could be hit--but it was too late. Although his bravado is boundless in the ring, Leonard is disarmingly modest outside it. Recalling the blows he had taken from the burly East German, Sugar Ray confessed: "I felt like he was a grown man and I was just a baby in the cradle."

Team Manager Roland Schwartz calls Leonard "the greatest amateur I've seen in my 38 years of boxing." But Sugar Ray, who was originally named after Singer Ray Charles, is not considering a professional career. "My mama said I could box until I win this one," says Leonard. "And that's it."

Palmer Park is also the home town of Bantamweight Finalist Charles Mooney, 25, an Army sergeant who prays before each bout that his opponent "stay out of harm's way and that I do too." It took a prayer for him to make the finals; he had survived two previous fights despite a nasty cut above his left eye. The other U.S. finalists were Lightweight Howard Davis, 20, of Glen Cove, N.Y.; Light Heavyweight Leon Spinks, 23, a Marine corporal stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C.; his younger brother, Middleweight Mike Spinks, 20, of St. Louis; and Flyweight Leo Randolph, 18, of Tacoma, Wash. Heavyweight "Big John" Tate, 21, a glowering, slow-footed truck driver from Knoxville who bombed his way into the Olympics after only 18 months of boxing experience, was blasted out in the first round of the semifinal by Cuba's formidable Teofilo Stevenson, the first heavyweight ever to win the gold medal twice.

On Saturday night for the finals the Garden involved was Montreal's 16,000-seat Forum, but it might well have been Madison Square. The pace was furious, patriotism rampant and the result golden for Leonard, Davis, Randolph and the Spinks boys.

The equestrians were jumping in the Grand Prix the next day, but by the time the last gloved hand was raised in victory Saturday night, almost all of the 6,000 athletes who had marched so hopefully in the opening ceremonies had come to the end of their Olympic odyssey. Plumped largely by their wrestlers and weight lifters, the Russians had once again amassed the largest team medal totals. East Germany had pried loose the 20-year superpower stranglehold, challenging the U.S. in medal totals. The credit for this went largely to East Germany's women, who took nine of the 14 track and field events as well as eleven swimming golds. Equestrian Tad Coffin, Shooter Lanny Bassham, Wrestler John Peterson and Archers Darrell Pace and Luann Ryon added five individual golds to those won by American swimmers, boxers and track and field stars.

Almost predictably, the Games of the XXI Olympiad ended as they began --with sermons, squabbles and a threat to withdraw. Charging Canada with "planned provocation," Soviet officials said they might boycott the weekend events if a 17-year-old Russian diver who defected on Thursday was not returned. Meanwhile America's Dwight Stones, the world-record-holding high jumper known as "the Mouth with Legs," was quoted as saying that French Canadians were "rude, discourteous and ignorant." Before slipping to third place in the Montreal rain, Stones, who made public apology by donning an I LOVE FRENCH CANADIANS T shirt on Saturday, relished the uproar that resounded throughout the Stadium whenever he jumped. "This is not a show. It's the Olympics," chastised a judge. "But the Olympics are a show," replied Stones. Next curtain: Moscow, 1980.

* The move may have been exuberance, but it was not lost on shoe manufacturers or Olympic officials. Reports of payoffs to athletes of up to $25,000 by the Puma shoe company were being investigated at Montreal.

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