XIV. LOS ANGELES AND LAKE PLACID, 1932
THE REAR OF THE “FLYING FISH” AND EDDIE TOLAN
IN THE 1932 GAMES, old records tumbled. In track and field (not including the 50,000-metre walk, which was being held for the first time), nineteen new Olympic records were set up. World record were shattered in seven events. The main Olympic stadium was the Los Angeles Coliseum. It was renovated to take in 100,000 spectators. More than a million people witnessed the Games and on one particular day a record crowd of 100,000 turned out to clap and cheer the contestants in track and field.
Thirteen hundred male and 127 female athletes representing thirtyseven countries participated in the Los Angeles Games. Vice-President Charles Curtis presided over the opening ceremonies as President Herbert Hoover was campaigning for re-election.
Brass bands blared and clarion trumpets sounded fanfares. Then the cannons thundered, as thousands of pigeons, symbolizing peace, fluttered into the sky. The whispers of a myriad wings blended with the echoes of the Olympic hymn sung by massed choirs.
“In the name of the President of the United States, I proclaim open the Olympic Games of Los Angeles”-announced Charles Curtis and the frenzied battle for laurels was on. Americans captured eleven of the twentythree events, established ten Olympic records and smashed five world records. No other nation got beyond winning more than three championships. Eddie Tolan of the U.S.A. won both the 100 and 200-metre spints. He set a new world mark in the former, and a new Olympic record in the latter event.
In the 400 metres, both gold and silver went to the americans. Eastman surged into the lead and ran the first 200 metres in 21-7/10 seconds. Carr was four-tenths of a second slower. With eighty metres to go, Carr drew level with Eastman. Together, stride for stride, both athletes thundered down the stretch. Carr eventually breasted the tape, a stride ahead of Eastman. Both shattered the world record.
At Los Angeles, Finland once again finished second in track and field competition. Matti won the javelin, brother Akilles was second in the Decathlon and veteran Ville Porhola (the 1920 shot-put champion) came second in the hammer throw. Finland captured three gold medals at Los Angeles. Neither Nurmi nor Ritola was in Los Angeles to excite and thrill the apectators for both had turned professional, but Finland did produce a new star in the person of Volmari Iso-Hello, who set an Olympic record during a “heat” of the 3,000-metre steeplechase and won the finals with an ease and poise that countryman Nurmi would have approved ! Owing to an official’s error, Iso-Hello and his rivals were made to run an extra lap.
Janusz Kusocinski of Poland won the 10,000-metre run and while doing so smashed the existing Olympic record.
The 5,000-metre run was as magnificent as it was controversial. Lauri Lehtinen of Finland, who was the holder of the world record, battled for top honours with Ralph Hill of the U.S.A. At the commencement of the last lap, the Finn was leading but Hill was close behind and catching up. Turning into the final stretch, Hill tried to pass the Finn on the outside. The Finn moved over also. Hill moved in again-and after a few strides, the Finn moved back and blocked the gap on the inside. Hill lost his stride. A few moments later he made another effort which nearly beat Lehtinen on the tape but the Finn was home, a short metre ahead of his American rival. Both men were timed to fourteen minutes and thirty seconds, an Olympic record.
The crowd yelled disapproval and for some minutes the huge Coliseum resounded to the unhappy sounds of howls, hoots and abuse.
The judges deliberated for more than an hour. The final verdict went in favour of the Finn. Hill’s second place in the 5,000-metre run stayed a record on the books till 1964.
The 400-metre low hurdles had their own particular flavor of drama and determination. The final brought to the startingline Morgan Taylor (U.S.A.) who was the champion in 1924, Lord Burghley of Great Britain, the 1928 champion, Glen Hardin of the U.S.A. Robert Tisdall of Ireland, Luigi Facelli of Italy and Areskoug of Sweden. The Swede was first off the mark but his lead lasted but a short while when the pack quickly surged past him. Tisdall now took the lead and Hardin was close behind him. The Irishman increased his lead and was thrown off-balance for a while, but soon recovered to reach the tape a short stride ahead of Hardin. Taylor finished third, Lord Burghley fourth and Facelli fifth. All five amashed the existing Olympic record and the first two hurdlers broke the world record.
Under the rules, Tisdall got the gold medal but was not permitted to claim either record, because he had kicked over a hurdle.
For those readers who have a penchant for numbers and numerology, the case of Phil Edwards of Canada may be interesting. In 1932, Edwards finished third in the 800-metre run as also in the 1,500-metre and in the 1,600-metre relay. In 1928 he was third in the 1,600-metre relay, and in 1936 he was third in the 800-metre run. His Olympic career was dogged by the number “three” and when he hung up his spikes for the last time, he retired with an impressive collection of “bronze” medals.
Another Canadian, Duncan McNaughton, became the first non-American to win the hight jump since Con Leahy had won the event in 1906.
By tradition, the Marathon comes at the end of the track and field events. In the Los Angeles Games, Juan Carlos Zabala of Argentina, just twenty years old, won the event and broke the Olympic record. Nineteen thirtytwo was the year of Babe Didrikson─the American girl from Texas who, though she was only permitted to enter for three events under the Olympic rules of those days, won two of the three, the javelin and the hurdles, and was placed second in the high jump. In the javelin, her throw smashed the world record. In the hurdles five days later, she again smashed the world record. In the high jump, she broke another world record but took the “silver”. Later, she took to golf and won seventeen consecutive golf tournaments, an all-time record! But she lost her last battle in 1956, after the greatest battle for her life against cancer, leaving behind not only a great legacy in golf and the Olympics, but a great legacy in courage. In 1932, the Japanese emerged for the first time as the world’s best swimmers. Four Japanese men won individual events and Olympic records were smashed by three of them. Their 800-metre relay quartet splintered the Olympic record by 38 seconds. Kusuo Kitamura─nicknamed by admirers as “the flying fish” and only fourteen years old─won the 1,500-metre free style. Masaji Kiyokawa, touching sixteen years, took the 100-metre back stroke and seventeen-year-old Yasuji Miyazaki became the 100-metre free style champion. Only “Buster” Crabbe of the U.S.A. who later went into the movies dented the Japanese monopoly by winning the 400-metre free style and breaking the Olympic record.
In women’s swimming, six of the seven events were won by the U.S.A. Ivar Johansson, a Swedish policeman won the catch-as-catch-can middleweight championship and the Greco-Roman welter-weight title and Carl Westergren of Sweden, a bus-driver, got a “gold” in the heavyweight division of the Greco-Roman event.
Argentina won the light-heavyweight and heavyweight boking championships. Gold medals from the Los Angeles Games travelled tournament, an Italian won the 100-kilometre cycling race and an Australian won the Single Sculls. In hockey, India had no equal. Against the U.S.A., Roop Singh found the boards twelve time. His team-mates added another twelve for good measure! The Americans scored once! The crushing result─24-1. India beat Japan by eleven goals to nil and Japan in turn crushed the U.S.A.─9-2. The final placings were─India 1, Japan 2, the U.S.A. 3.
The Australian Bobby Pearce, won the Single Sculls for the second straight Olympics.
At the Lake Placid Olympics, the U.S.A. had a clear advantage in numbers. Of the three hundred athletes from seventeen nations, one-fifth were Americans. Norway, the winners in 1924 and 1928, finished second in gold medals. The women’s figure-skating “crown” went to Sonja Henie, while Birger Ruud won the jumping championship and Grottumsbraaten retained the Nordic combined title.
From every standpoint, the 1932 Olympic Games were a great success but nobody could guess what was to follow four years later in Berlin!
XV. BERLIN AND GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, 1936
THE GREAT JESSE OWENS
IT WAS THE YEAR OF myths in Germany and one of the biggest was the myth of racial superiority. There were ten coloured Americans among the sixtysix men in the U.S. track and field team. One German newspaper disparagingly referred to them as “black auxiliaries”. And from these “black auxiliaries” came the “Jesse” ︣Owens and he shattered the myth of Germanic might.
The saga of Jesse Owens really began on May 25, 1935 while he was competing in the annual Western Conference Track and Field Championships for his university. In a period of two hours he swept to victory in the 100-yard “dash”, the 220-yard and 220-yard low hurdles and the broad jump he leapt 26 feet 5-21/64 inches, a record not surpassed for a quarter of a century, till Ralph Boston of the U.S.A. jumped 26 feet 7 ¾ inches in the Rome Olympics in 1960. Owens had a seven-foot stride which assisted him in overtaking anybody who happened to take advantage of his sometimes sluggish explosion from the starting-blocks.
On August 3, 1936 in Berlin when Owens went to the starting-block and braced himself for the 100-metre dash, he was confident and as sharp as a needle. It was the second day of the Berlin Games and he was pitted against three Americans, a German, a Dutchman and a Swede. He was the odds-on favo