New Nurmi

If another Golden Era of sport is to follow World War II, as it did World War I, the Paavo Nurmi of tomorrow may well be raven-haired Leslie MacMitchell, who developed his legs running up & down the subway stairs of his native Manhattan.

Last week, competing against 133 runners from 22 U.S. colleges, MacMitchell, just 21 and a senior at New York University, romped off with the Intercollegiate varsity (fivemile) cross-country championship for the third year in a row--a feat that had not been accomplished since Cornell's John Paul Jones did it in 1910-11-12. But MacMitchell's record over shadows the great Jones's. For he also won the Intercollegiate freshman event before competing in the varsity. In fact, Leslie MacMitchell has never been defeated in cross-country competition.

Track experts consider MacMitchell the most promising runner ever developed in the U.S. Having an extraordinarily low pulse of 38 (72 is normal), relentless perseverance, perfect mental attitude and Boy-Scout living habits, he has run within two seconds of every world's record for half a dozen distances, from 440 yards to 1,500 meters. At a mile, he has already tied Glenn Cunningham's recognized indoor world's record of 4 min., 7.4 sec.

Well aware that milers do not reach their peak until they are 25 (Cunningham ran his 4:07.4 when he was 28), track experts predict that up-&-coming MacMitchell may some day run a mile in four minutes flat.

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