My memory of the Tokyo Olympics is getting up early to watch the Television -
no VCR back in those days. What still haunts me is theme tune - Tokyo
melody.
American swimmer Don Schollander won four gold medals and Australian swimmer
Dawn Fraser won the 100m freestyle for the third time. Abebe Bikila of
Ethiopia became the first repeat winner of the marathon - less than six weeks
after having his appendix removed. Russian rower Vyacheslav Ivanov won the
single sculls for the third time.
Al Oerter of the United States is one of my top 10 Olympic heroes. He
won his third discus gold medal in the Tokyo games, and would go on to win a
fourth in Mexico city. In 1964 he won despite a cervical disc injury that forced him to wear a
neck harness. Hungarian water polo player Dezso Gyarmati won his fifth medal in a row.
Another
Hungarian, Greco-Roman wrestler Imre Polyak, finally won a gold medal after
finishing second in the same division at the previous three Olympics. By winning
two medals of each kind, Larysa Latynina of the Ukraine brought her career medal
total to an incredible 18. She is also one of only four athletes in any sport to
win nine gold medals.
'Bullet' Bob Hayes
Bob Hayes won the 100m gold medal despite wearing borrowed shoes and running
in a chewed-up lane
1. (In those days they drew lots for lane numbers.) His time of 10.0
equalled the world record at the time. However, it was when it came to the 100m
relay that the 'Bullet' showed the world what he could really do, and why he
earned the tag of the 'fastest man on the planet'.
The grainy black-and-white
film of the 4x100 relay shows Hayes take the baton on the last leg in about 5th place.
He was at least 5m
down on the French race leader. Then the 'Bullet' unleashed what many
think is still the fastest last leg ever run. After 50 yards he had caught
everyone including the Frenchman, and won pulling away by a good 3m. Study
of the film indicates that he may have run that 100m in under 8.5 seconds.
Bob Hayes went on to star for the Dallas Cowboys, and is the only man to win
an Olympic gold medal and a SuperBowl ring. He was such a fast wide
receiver in American Football that no defensive back could catch him.
Consequently, opponents had to scheme special zone coverage schemes just to contain that blistering acceleration
seen in that Olympic relay final. As Bob also had a physical presence, that
did not work too well and he set numerous receiving records, including a 95 yd
touch down reception which is still the longest by a Dallas player. In
2009 Bob Hayes was posthumously inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.
Lyn 'The Leap' Davies
It was wonderful news that Welshman Lyn 'The Leap' Davies won the long jump.
There is a well known syndrome that teenage boys try and emulate their heroes,
they pretend to score winning goals, or smash balls to the boundary. Well
this teenager - Guy Thomas, literally came down to earth with a bump. Even
with my longest run-up I could not jump from the white board actually into the
sand pit. Still, as long as Lyn the Leap soared over 8 meters and
collected the gold medal - I didn't
care that I could not jump 8 ft.
1. Lynn DAVIES (GBR) 8.07m.
2. Ralph BOSTON
(USA) 8.03m.
3. Igor TER-OVANESYAN (RUS)
7.99m.
Ann Packer
Will remembers David Coleman's commentary on BBC television on the Women's
800m final. Ann Packer [GB] was the slowest of the starters in the final and had
only run the distance 5 times before in competition. A 400m runner, it was the
finishing burst of speed of a sprinter around the final bend which lives in
Will's memory. She moved passed the opposition as if they were standing still to
win the gold medal in a world record time of 2 minutes 1.1 seconds.
Footnote Please send us your interesting facts
and trivia for the Montreal 1976 Olympic games.
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