Citius, Alfius, Fortius

Time after time last week, the Royal Australian Air Force band blared The Star-Spangled Banner to signal a U.S. victory in the 1956 Olympic Games--so often that wags in Melbourne's Stadium suggested a switch to The Stars and Stripes Forever. Still, competition on the field added up to something less than a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Though the Russians fared worse than expected in the major track and field events (they good-naturedly gave Americans and others some of the two dozen victory cakes they had ordered on arrival), they scored points in almost everything they tried, and made the Games of the XVI Olympiad a lively, if unofficial, competition between the world's two chief competitors. The roaring stadium crowd of 100,000 was treated to a daily succession of sensational performances. Some of them:

Decathlon

The toughest Olympic test of all had been all but conceded to U.C.L.A.'s World Record Holder Rafer Johnson. The U.S. Navy's and Indiana U.'s Milt Campbell, runner-up to 1952 Champion Bob Mathias at Helsinki, and an even huskier broth of a boy four years later, had other ideas. "The good Lord," said Campbell, had told him to try the decathlon rather than the hurdles, and the young (23) Negro poured it on in almost every event. Only a surprisingly poor showing in the pole vault (11 ft. 1 3/4 in.) kept Campbell from breaking Rafer Johnson's world record of 7,985 points. But he scored only 48 points less than that, to top Mathias' Olympic mark and enthrone himself as the greatest all-round athlete in the world.

800 Meters

For most of two laps on the brick-tinted cinders, the U.S. Army's Tom Courtney and his smooth-striding teammate Arnie Sowell of Pittsburgh scrapped for the lead. "I have been trying for three years to call on some extra quality in the stretch." said Courtney later, "and 20 yards from the wire I realized this was the moment. But my legs were dead. I couldn't run. I was all in. I told myself that this was not an 800-meter race but one of 20 yards. I only had to run 20 yards--and I was panicky." By this time, Britain's Derek Johnson had sliced into the lead. A man passed so late in the 800-meter run never recovers--or almost never. Tom Courtney suddenly discovered the ultimate ounce of extra quality he had been hunting for ("Something made me catch the guy"), got back up on his toes, and strained past Johnson to set an Olympic record of 1:47.7.

5,000 Meters

For the second time. Russia's remarkable distance machine Vladimir Kuts, a 29-year-old navy lieutenant or an army captain--depending on which Russian a foreigner talks to--gave the crowd a great display of distance running, and the band an excuse to play Soyuz Nerushimy (Union Indissoluble). After outrunning and outsmarting Britain's Gordon Pirie in a 10,000-meter demonstration of brilliantly employed endurance. Kuts came back five days later to do it all over again in the equally demanding 5,000-meter race.

Shotput

As everyone expected, U.S. Muscleman Parry O'Brien (TIME, Dec. 3) won the shotput with impressive ease, taking the title as he should have, by breaking his own Olympic record with a 60-ft.-11-in. heave. "They painted the shot and the grip was slippery," said Parry, disappointed at falling short of his 63-ft.-2-in. world record.

Dashes

Texan Bobby Morrow became the Games' first two-medal winner when he whisked in front to add the 200-meters medal to his 100-meter win. Betty Cuthbert, lithe young lady who raises budgereegahs (Australian parakeets) when she isn't flying herself, sent most of sports-loving Australia into a transport by winning another double--the 100-meter and 200-meter races -- and then went on to anchor the winning relay team and win her third gold medal of the Games.

Hurdles

U.S. Navy Lieut. Jack Davis, who got beaten by his teammate Harrison Dillard for the 110-meter high-hurdles championship in a photofinish at Helsinki in 1952, had no better luck at Melbourne. This time Korean War Veteran Lee Calhoun led him by an eyelash in 13.5. A speck of dust back of them came Duke's Joel Shankle, to complete the U.S. sweep.

Marathon

The long (26 miles. 385 yds.), wind-racking test that commemorates Pheidippedes' race to Athens with news of Miltiades' victory at Marathon, turned out to be a triumph for an old campaigner. In 1948 and 1952 France's Okacha-Alain Mimoun lost three distance races to Emil Zatopek; this year the 36-year-old Algerian saved his strength for the longest race of all, had it all to himself, finished in 2 hrs. 25 min.--less than 2 min. under Old Nemesis Zatopek's Olympic record.

Swimming & Diving

Australian sprinters left the Americans gasping in the swim tank, and Australian women barely let their competitors get into swimsuits. Otherwise the U.S. squad got off to a splashing start: New Jersey's acrobatic Bob Clotworthy beautifully outdid California's Don Harper for first in springboard diving; Bill Yorzyk won with a 2:19.3 effort in the 200-meter butterfly.

400 Meters

Still another expected U.S. point winner was upset when the Army's Lou Jones burned himself out in the first half of the run, but again a champion stepped from behind into the place of a fallen warrior. Villanova's Charley Jenkins nipped Germany's Karl Haas in 46.7, to earn another U.S. gold medal.

Steeplechase

For a few hours, after hasty judges disqualified Britain's Chris Brasher, the grueling 3,000-meter steeplechase promised to provide one of the Games' few real rhubarbs. But after they thought things over, the officials gave Brasher his gold medal, dropped Hungary's Sandor Rozsnyoi back to second place, where even he admitted he belonged.

1,500 Meters

Young (21) Irishman Ron Delany, who runs mostly under the blue and white of Philadelphia's Villanova University, ran for Erin to victory and a new Olympic record (3:41.2) in the so-called "metric mile." To do it, he beat three other better-than-four-minute milers, including Australia's Long John Landy. whose once wonderful legs are failing him, brought him home a game but gimpy third.

Basketball

Lanky Bill Russell of the University of San Francisco's 1955 US. college champions and his sharpshooting teammates creamed Russia's good but old-fashioned squad 85-55 in a preliminary game, churned them for good in the finals, 89-55.

Boxing

U.S. Army Lieut. Pete Rademacher flattened Russia's Lev Moukhine, to keep the Olympic heavyweight championship in the U.S. Light-Heavyweight Jim Boyd of Rocky Mount, N.C. decked Rumania's Gheorghe Negrea three times to win a unanimous decision. Russians won the featherweight, the light-welterweight and the middleweight medals.

This week the Games moved into the esoteric events--gymnastics, fencing, Greco-Roman wrestling. They were all worth medals just as golden, and they were an opportunity for Russia to close the gap between its unofficial score and the U.S.'s. By week's end, however, the U.S. had 28 gold medals, an unofficial 463 points, and claim to the finest track and field team ever assembled.

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