Track & Field: Hurrah for Homebodies

The Olympics were still a year away —but the U.S. was already limbering up its muscles. At the Pan American Games in Sao Paulo, Brazil, U.S. swimmers won 19 of 20 events, U.S. wrestlers swept eight of eight, U.S. weightlifters six of seven. Latin American track fans saw their first 16-ft. vault when Dave Tork soared over the crossbar at 16 ft. ¾ in. Balding Pete McArdle chopped 65.1 sec. off the Games record for 10,000 meters, and Broadjumper Ralph Boston leaped 26 ft. 7¼ in. Jaunty Jim Beatty, who had not lost a race in two years, managed to get beaten in the 1,500 meters—but it was his U.S. teammate, Jim Grelle, who did it. By week's end, with just a few events to go, the 372 athletes on the U.S. team had won 102 gold medals—more than all other countries combined.

Even so, the stars of Sao Paulo had better look to their laurels. While junketing U.S. trackmen were shellacking their Latin neighbors, a band of talented homebodies put on quite a show of their own. In one brief weekend, four world records tumbled.

∙POLE VAULT. "I'm still doing all kinds of things wrong," complained Brian Sternberg, 19. "I have a tendency to arch back —and that's really bad." But at Philadelphia's Penn Relays, Sternberg arched right over the bar at 16 ft. 5 in.—a new world record. Just three days later, in Monroe, La., Northeast Louisiana State's John Pennel, 22, soared 16 ft. 6¾ in. on his first try. "I figure to clear 17 ft. before I'm through," said Pennel—but he is in no particular hurry. "I'll go at it a couple of inches at a time."

∙Discus. A fulltime computer programmer, husky Al Oerter, 26, the 1960 Olympic champion, was out of shape and practice when he stepped into the discus ring at the Mt. San Antonio Relays in Walnut, Calif. His first heave traveled 201 ft. 5 in. On his second try, he hurled the 4.4-lb. discus 205 ft. 5½ in., breaking his own year-old world record by 7 in.

∙MILE RELAY. Before they took to the track at Walnut for the one-mile relay, four University of Arizona undergraduates got a gift: an autographed baton, the same one that had been carried by the U.S. Olympic relay team in 1960 when it clocked a record 3 min. 5.6 sec. Paced by Sophomore Henry Carr, who flashed through his 440-yd. leg in 45.1 sec., the Arizonans promptly ran the mile in 3 min. 4.5 sec.

∙DECATHLON. Ducky Drake, his track coach at the University of California at Los Angeles, calls him "the finest athlete in the world." Nationalist China's wiry Yang Chuan-kwang, 29, may be just that. For a few days last January C. K. Yang held the world indoor pole-vault record: 16 ft. 3¼ in. Last week at Walnut, his legs were racked with cramps, and Coach Drake had to massage his muscles. Yang still managed to vault 15 ft. 10½ in., enough to earn him 1,515 points on the decathlon scale —the maximum allowed. In the other nine events (100 meters, broad jump, shot-put, high jump, 400 meters, 110-meter hurdles, discus throw, javelin, 1,500 meters), he picked up 7,606 more points. His total of 9,121 smashed Rafer Johnson's three-year-old world decathlon record by 438 points. Groused Yang: "I should have done better."