OLYMPICS: The Games: Up in the Air

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Other American gold medalists included Mike Bruner, a 20-year-old Stanford University sophomore who shaved his head right down to his eyebrows to help himself win the 200-meter butterfly; John Hencken, a 22-year-old Stanford graduate who set two world records for the 100-meter breaststroke in two days; Matt Vogel, a 19-year-old from Fort Wayne, Ind., who led the U.S. to a three-medal sweep in the 100-meter butterfly; and Brian Goodell, the 17-year-old California high schooler who shattered world records in both the 400-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle.

Although the U.S. women's swimming team had to settle for silvers, the crowd at the Olympic Pool did get to savor one golden performance by an American girl. Jenni Chandler, a 17-year-old high schooler from Lincoln, Ala., won a gold medal for a nearly flawless performance in the three-meter springboard diving event. Because, in part, of one East German judge's chauvinistic preference for his countrywomen's diving, Chandler was the clear favorite of the crowd, which hissed loudly whenever she was given a low score. Through no fault of her own, she was the target of anti-American catcalling in the Pan-American Games held in Mexico City last year; she burst into tears at the boos, and still finished first. In Montreal, Chandler responded to the cheers with a remarkably consistent series of dives into the ink-dark pool (colored that way to help the divers judge the surface). Throughout the week the spotlight was focused most intensely on the triumphs of East bloc women and U.S. men, but as always, there were other moments of glory, gallantry and gall:

> Gymnast Shun Fujimoto will return to Japan next week wearing an Olympic gold medal—and a hip-to-ankle cast to lock his broken right knee. He injured it during the floor exercises in last week's team competitions but decided to "forget about the pain" and perform on the rings, his strongest event. Finishing with a triple somersault and twist, the 26-year-old physical education teacher managed to keep his footing as he came down. "How he landed without collapsing is beyond my comprehension," said the doctor, Jean Paul Bedard, who examined Fujimoto afterward.

> For a few happy hours on Wednesday, Margaret Murdock, 33, of Topeka, Kans., the first woman U.S. shooting-team member to be in contention for the gold medal in the smallbore rifle event, thought that she had won the gold. Correction of a clerical error left her tied for first place with Teammate Larry Bassham. Then re-examination of the final targets gave Bassham, a 29-year-old Army captain from Texas, the gold. Bassham called the technicalities "arbitrary rubbish," and when the medals were awarded, he insisted that Murdock join him at the top.

>Russian Pentathlete Boris Onischenko was quietly whisked from his room at the Olympic Village one night last week and driven to the airport for a hasty departure from Montreal. Onischenko, a 1972 silver medalist who was the favorite for the gold, had been caught using an electronically rigged epee that scored touches even when no contact had been made. Onischenko protested that the equipment he used was not his own, but that he had borrowed it.