Sport: Inhuman

“No man can run that fast.” So said almost everybody in 1896 when Bernie Wefers first ran the ioo-yard dash in 9.4 seconds. Six more times he equaled the present world record, a generation before Frank Wykoff (1930) and Jesse Owens (1935). Watches were checked and verified. But the A.A.U. still called it im possible. Wefers had to be content with an official 9.8.

Reporters looked up Bernie Wefers last week on the eve of his 71st birthday. In the New York Athletic Club, where he has coached track for 36 years, he peeled off his shirt and showed that the was still in condition (see cut}. Old-timers around the club swore that he would have shaved even his impossible 9.4 if he had ever really let himself out.