The Long Mile

It took just a shade over four minutes to run the Wanamaker Mile last January, but it took more than ten months to decide, beyond further appeal, who won. Last week, after polling a convention of its far-flung membership, the National A.A.U. hoisted its decision: Wisconsin's Don Gehrmann.

This was a natural, if delayed, comfort to Gehrmann, who had been named the winner in the first place when Chief Judge Asa Bushnell intervened to break a tie among the place judges (TIME, Feb. 6). It was a matching disappointment to Manhattan FBI-Man Fred Wilt, who was ruled the winner 13 days after the race, when New York's Metropolitan A.A.U. decided that one place judge had been ineligible to cast a vote (TIME, Feb. 20). In submitting the question to representatives of its national membership, most of whom had been miles from Madison Square Garden on the night of the race, the A.A.U. was candidly calling for a decision on the officiating rather than the running. The delegates voted for the officiating, 304-to-108.

Fred Wilt would not have to return the cup. Don Gehrmann, always convinced that he had won, and hoping for the vindication that he got last week, had hung on to it through the months.

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