International Olympic Committee : News

Abebe Bikila

10/23/1964 12:00:00 PM

In Rome, Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila had been added to the team at the last minute and had then astonished the world by winning the Olympic title while competing in bare feet. In Tokyo, inadvertently, he delivered a victory that was every bit as amazing.

This time, there was no doubting his star quality, but his fitness was in great question. Forty days before the Olympic marathon was due to start, he had started to feel discomfort while on a training run in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. He decided to persevere, but then collapsed in agony and was taken to hospital.

Doctors quickly diagnosed acute appendicitis and, six weeks before his event, removed his appendix. Few gave him any chance of competing but, even as he remained in hospital, the indomitable Bikila started jogging in the courtyard. He travelled to Tokyo with the team, entered the marathon and, to general amazement, lined up at the start. Nobody was sure what to expect – and nobody predicted he would dominate in the way he did.

His tactics hadn’t changed since his gold medal of 1960 – to stay with the leaders for the first half of the race, then to gradually raise the tempo to a speed where no-one could stay with him. Sure enough, at a third of the way round the course, only Australia’s Ron Clarke and Ireland’s Jim Hogan were in touch and, by halfway, Bikila was on his own.

His lead got ever bigger and by the time he entered the Olympic Stadium, applaud Bikila across the line, stunned by both his margin of victory and by the lack of exhaustion. By the time Basil Heatley, of Great Britain, arrived to claim silver, Bikila was calmly doing stretching exercises, having recovered from his exertions.

He was acclaimed as a hero, once more, when he arrived back in Ethiopia. As a mark of his triumph, Bikila was presented with a car – a white Volkswagen Beetle.

Joe Frazier

10/23/1964 5:46:00 PM

Buster Mathis had been picked for the US boxing team on the basis of an excellent amateur record. He was to become a very good heavyweight boxer, but not one of the greats. Fate had that in mind for others.

And so it was that Mathis broke his thumb shortly before the Olympic Games, and so his place in the team went to a reserve – Joe Frazier. The man who fate had planned for Frazer was destined for legendary status. He is now considered one of the 10 greatest heavyweights of all time, and his professional contests against Muhammad Ali and George Foreman have become some of the most discussed and written-about fights of all time. It’s hard to think of that golden era of boxing, and not think of “The Thriller in Manila”, for instance, of the much-hyped and even more applauded “Fight of the Century”.

And yet in Tokyo, Frazier was much less well-known, at least at the start. In the first round, though, he announced his intentions with a first-round knockout of Uganda’s George Oywello. His next opponent, the Australian Athol McQueen, floored Frazier in the first round, but the American recovered to stop his opponent.

By now Frazier was the only American boxer left, and in the semi-finals he came up against the towering Soviet Vadim Yemelyanov. Despite the size difference – the Russian was around 12cm taller – Frazier won by knock-out in the second round. By then, though, he had felt a tremendous pain in his left hand. Like Mathis before the Games, Frazier had a broken thumb.

He was determined to fight for gold, though. He told nobody about the injury and stepped into the ring the next day to face the German Hans Huber, a bus mechanic who had really wanted to qualify as a wrestler, in the final. The normally devastating left hook was, predictably, not as powerful, but Frazier fought cleverly, favoured his right much more than normal, and dug into his reserves of strength. He was rewarded with a 3-2 judges’ decision. The gold was his – greatness lay ahead. Six years later, he was world champion.

Bob Hayes

10/22/1964 12:00:00 PM

The 100m title went to Bob Hayes, probably one of the fastest runners who has ever lived and certainly one of the most successful, even though his career was short. In the run-up to the Olympic Games, he appeared entirely unbeatable, winning each of 49 races in which he took part between 1962 and 1964.

Hayes set a clutch of sprinting records. He was the first person to run the 100 yards (91.4m) in 9.1 seconds, and the first person to cover 60 yards (54.8m) in less than six seconds. The form book had him down as a red-hot favourite. He won his first-round race with ease, then won his quarter-final with a similar level of comfort. The only question now remaining was whether, under pressure, he may be hampered by a leg injury he had sustained a few months previously, but the semi-final seemed to answer that final doubt. He recorded a time of 9.91 seconds, which would have smashed the world record, but was not recognised because it was wind-assisted. It was more than enough, though, to get him into the final.

He was placed in Lane 1, which had to be raked over after being badly dug up by athletes at the start of the 20km walk. Hayes was also wearing borrowed spikes, because one of his own pair was lost when it was kicked under his bed in the athletes’ village. Yet he exploded out of the blocks, took an early lead, and won by 2m, equalling the world record. It was the 49th win in a row – Hayes only lost once over 100m, and never over 100 yards (91.4m).

His final act as an athlete, though, may have been his greatest. He ran the anchor leg in the 4x100m, and took over with the USA team in fifth place. What followed was an astonishing display of speed, strength and determination as he brought the baton home with a three-metre margin. It’s believed his time for that 100m was around 8.8 secs, a remarkable pace even allowing for the flying start.

After the Games, Hayes transferred to playing professional American football and was a huge success. He spent nearly a decade playing for the Dallas Cowboys, before finishing his career with the San Francisco 49ers, and is the only person to have secured victory in both the Olympic Games and the Super Bowl.

Lars Gunnar Käll and Stig Lennart Käll

10/22/1964 5:51:00 PM

There was a new prize that emerged from these Games, and it couldn’t be won by coming first in any race. The Fair Play prize was initiated in 1964 to recognise outstanding acts of sportsmanship, and it continues to this day. In particular, it offers congratulation and recognition to those who have compromised their own performance in order to help others. Such was the case for Swedish brothers - Lars Gunnar Käll and Stig Lennart Käll.

The Käll brothers were competing in the Flying Dutchmen event in the sailing regatta, where points are awarded on the basis of finishing positions. But in one of their races, they were presented with an agonising choice – to pursue a medal, or rescue stranded rivals.

Australia’s Flying Dutchman team of John Dawe and Ian Winter had capsized and could not right their boat. It was clear they needed help but, rather than wait for others to provide it, the Käll brothers sprang to action. First they rescued Winter, who was in the water, and then they sailed over to the stricken boat. Dawe was clinging to its hull and he, too, was pulled into the safety of the Swedish vessel, named Hayama.

For both teams, it was the end of any dream of making the podium, but the admiration for the Swedish crew was felt around the world. Crews from New Zealand, Great Britain and the United States took the medals, but it was the actions of - Lars and Stig Käll that were remembered with every bit as much admiration.

Tamara Press

10/21/1964 2:00:00 PM

The Press sisters from the Soviet Union were a versatile couple of stars. Four years before, in Rome, Irina had won the 80m hurdles while her sister, Tamara Press, had taken gold in the shot and silver in the discus. They both returned to Olympic competition in 1964 intent on more success.
Irina’s triumph came in a new sport, the pentathlon, but for Tamara, the challenge was to retain her shot put title and take the discus gold. Two years earlier, she had secured the double in the European Championships, and her greatest rivals there were likely to be her main competitors in Tokyo.
First up was the discus. Since missing out on gold in Rome, Press had broken the world record five times. But the early lead was held by the German Ingrid Lotz, and Press simply couldn’t produce the sort of throw of which she was capable. After four of the six rounds, she was down in fourth place, potentially not just missing out on gold, but missing out on a medal altogether.

But great athletes deliver great performances under great pressure. Knowing she had only two efforts left, Press’s fifth throw soared long and landed 6cm ahead of Lotz’s lead mark. It was a new Olympic record, and enough to secure the gold medal.

There was no time to relax and celebrate, though. The shot put competition was the following day, an event in which Press had broken the world record twice since the Rome Olympic Games. But while nerves had blighted the early rounds of her discus final, this time around she was in form from the very start.

Her first put took her into a lead that she never looked like losing. In fact, Press’s final effort was her longest – an Olympic record distance of 18.14m – but by then her victory was all but assured.
Like her sister, she was to retire from competition a couple of years later, having secured a haul of three golds and one silver medal.

Japan’s women’s volleyball

10/21/1964 5:54:00 PM

This was the first time volleyball had been included in the Olympic programme, and it was keenly anticipated by the home supporters. The Japanese men took bronze, behind the dominant Soviet Union, but the home nation was more focused on Japan’s women’s volleyball team.

Ten members of the team worked at the same spinning mill near Osaka. The team’s coach, Hirofumi Daimatsu, also worked there, where he was in charge of buying office supplies. Such an ordinary exterior hid a man of extraordinary determination.

His training techniques bordered on the extreme. Players were taunted and forced to train almost every day of the year, but Daimatsu also created new tactics that have survived to this day.

He crafted a highly successful team that captured the fascination of the Japanese public. They were expected to win, and to win with style.

They obliged by dropping just one set in the whole tournament, a narrow 15-13 reverse at the hands of Poland. Even then, there was a reason - that set was conceded only after Daimatsu had taken some of his best players off the court in order to frustrate the watching Soviet scouts.

In the final match, the women played the USSR. The Soviet team actually reached the final with a superior record, with four victories and no sets conceded, but the match did not turn out to be the classic that neutrals might have hoped for. Instead, the Japanese were dominant from beginning to end, winning 3-0.

For the home fans, though, it was exactly the result they had hoped for. The women’s triumph was watched by 80% of the country on TV.

After the Olympic Games were over, the team’s captain, Masae Kasai, met the Prime Minister. She mentioned that she could not meet a prospective husband because of the athletes’ strict training regime. He sympathised, set her up on a date with a man named Kazuo Nakamura - and the two went on to marry.

Frank Gorman

10/21/1964 4:45:00 PM

The Olympic Games is not just about triumphs, but also about those who have met with disappointment – and come out the other side. One such person is the American diver Frank Gorman.

Few Olympians have suffered the disappointment that he faced, having spent years training in hope of victory, and then finding himself in a position where a gold medal seemed almost certain – only for his chances to be dashed. The challenge facing such people is to compose yourself and continue fighting – and that’s just what Gorman did.

He was a Navy Lieutenant who had dominated the men’s springboard competition for almost all of its length. It was apparent from the early stages that this would be a contest in which two athletes would be out in front – Gorman and his American teammate Kenneth Sitzberger. In fact, as it proved, Gorman was to outscore Sitzberger in all but one of the rounds.

The other one, though, was to prove decisive. It came in the ninth round, at a point when Gorman was well ahead on points. He had only two dives remaining when, after a long wait on the diving board he launched his back, two-and-a-half somersault tuck.

As he entered the water, Gorman knew, as divers always know, that it had not gone to plan. The dive lacked the precision of his other efforts and the entry had been messy. As he pulled himself from the pool, Gorman’s eyes looked up to the heavens, and then he put his hands to his head. His score was just over 10 – Sitzberger was to score more than 21 points that round. The advantage that he had built up, painstakingly, over the preceding eight dives was wiped out in one moment.

Gorman composed himself for his final dive, though – and this time hit it perfectly. He had outscored Sitzberger for the ninth time in ten dives – but it was good enough only for silver.

Ann Packer

10/21/1964 2:43:00 PM

If versatility is a virtue for sportsmen and women, Ann Packer must be ranked among Britain’s best athletes of the era. She had won the 100 yards (91.4m) title as a schoolgirl in 1959, and the women’s national title in long jump the following year. She made her international debut as a long jumper in 1960 but was shortly to make the European Championship final in the 200m in 1962, as well as the final of the Commonwealth Games 80m hurdles. The following year, still unsure of where her best talent lay, she tried out the 400m and ran a high-class time of 53.6secs in just her fourth race.

So for her, the choice of event for Tokyo was rather complicated. She decided to concentrate her efforts on the 400m and then, almost as an after-thought, entered the 800m, another event in which she had little experience but lots of potential.

Packer set a European record in the 400m final, but had to be content with a silver medal behind the Australian Betty Cuthbert, who had sprinted clear and held on, despite Packer closing in the final stages. The British athlete turned now to the longer distance, but was not confident of matching that medal-winning performance.

She could finish only fifth in the opening heat, scraping into the next round, and was then third in her semi-final. Feeling tired, and lacking confidence, Packer considered missing the final entirely to go shopping. But she was inspired by her fiancé, athlete Robbie Brightwell, who had finished a disappointing fourth in the men’s 400m final and was despondent on missing out on a medal.

And so, to cheer him up, Packer decided to race anyway. The race was led from the start by the French athlete Maryvonne Dupureur, who broke away from the pack and held first place for most of its distance. Behind her, though, Packer moved up from eighth, to sixth, to third and then overtook Dupureur with 70 metres to go, holding on to win in a new world record time. “It was so easy, I could not believe I had won,” said Packer afterwards. “I knew nothing about the event and that probably helped.”

It was a triumph that appeared to set up this exceptional athlete for a glittering sporting future. Instead, Packer retired from competition at the age of just 22. She married Robbie – who had won his own medal with a silver in the 4x400m relay - and they had three sons – one became a 400m runner, the other two became professional footballers.

Irina Press

10/20/1964 12:30:00 PM

The pentathlon was introduced to the Olympic Games in Tokyo and it produced an absorbing contest between three outstanding athletes.
The favourite was Irina Press, from the Soviet Union, who had set the world record in the event back in 1959. Her aptitude was clear – at the Rome Olympic Games four years previously, she had competed in both the 80m hurdles and the sprint relay with distinction – a gold over the hurdles, and fourth place with the relay team. In Tokyo she replaced the relay with the shot put, a sign of both her versatility and her aptitude for the multiple disciplines of the pentathlon. As it happened, she was to miss out on medal in both the hurdles and the shot put in 1964. But in the pentathlon, she started as favourite.

Challenging her were two other greats of the sport – the former world record holder Galina Bystrova, also from the Soviet Union, and the British star Mary Rand, who had won the long jump gold just two days before. After the first day, Press held a comfortable lead. She and Bystrova had gone quickest over the hurdles, with Rand just behind, but her best shot put was far superior to her rivals – two and a half metres longer than Bystrova and a yawning six metres beyond Rand’s best. It was to prove the key to her gold medal.

Rand actually won the next three events – the high jump, long jump and 200m, to overtake Bystrova for second place and close the gap to Press, but the Soviet champion was able to secure solid results in each, and won the title by more than 200 points, setting a new world record in the process. Three days later she competed in the individual shot put competition, but her best effort was way short of her longest put from the pentathlon, and she finished outside the medals – although her sister Tamara did win gold.
Like her sister, Irina Press retired from competition two years later and turned to coaching instead.

Mary Rand

10/19/1964 2:54:00 PM

Athletes often share a room during the Olympic Games, but rarely can a room have contained quite so much sporting brilliance as the one shared by Anna Packer and Mary Rand, two unassuming British women destined to prove themselves among the most versatile athletes in the world.

Packer had been a champion in the long jump, hurdles and sprinting earlier in her life. In Tokyo, she had won silver in the 400m and gold in the 800m. And yet, remarkably, her room-mate’s haul was ever greater.

Mary Rand was another athlete of extreme versatility. She had competed in the 80m hurdles in Rome, and she was an international class sprinter. She held the unofficial triple jump world record (the event was not officially recognised until many years after her retirement) and was a fine high jumper.

But long jump was her main focus and she came to these Games inspired by the memory of a huge disappointment at the previous edition. In Rome, four years before, she had led the long jump after the qualifying round but then had a terrible time in the final, with two no-jumps and a meek effort in the third round that was only good enough for ninth place. In Tokyo, though, she was a woman transformed. Once again, she shone in the qualifying round, breaking the Olympic long jump record, but this time her form continued into the final. With her fifth jump out of six, she broke the world record to confirm her victory and become the first British woman to win a gold medal in Olympic athletics.

Rand was not finished there, though. Two days later she was taking part in the inaugural women’s pentathlon, perhaps the most gruelling event for women athletes of the time. Rand stood third after the first day, despite a poor shot put, and, thanks to predictably strong performances in the long jump and high jump, moved up to second. Despite winning three of the five elements, she could not get ahead of the imperious Irina Press, but did win a silver to add to her collection.

Finally Rand completed her set with a bronze medal in the 4x100m relay. “She was the most gifted athlete I ever saw,” said Packer of her room-mate. “There has never been anyone like her since, and I don’t believe there ever will.”

Injury prevented her from making the team for the 1968 Olympic Games and Rand retired that year, still only 28 years old.