Sport: Scoreboard, Feb. 1, 1960

¶ Sugar Ray Robinson, grown old and brittle at 39, lost his comic-opera middleweight championship of New York and Massachusetts in 15 floundering rounds at Boston Garden to a flat-nosed pug named Paul Fender from nearby Brookline, later sat with lowered head and talked quietly of the erosion of the powers that had made him the greatest fighter of his generation (“That split second that goes by when you’re missing opportunities”).

¶ Puffing mightily, Los Angeles’ Parry O’Brien, 27, put the 16-lb. shot 63 ft. 1 in. to break his own indoor world record by a whopping 11¼ in., share meet honors with Miler Burleson (see above). In Manhattan, The Bronx’s heavily girdered (6 ft. 2 in., 245 Ibs.) Gary Gubner, 17 (TIME, Jan. 25), finally found a gym big enough for his liking, snapped the national high school indoor record for the 12-lb. shot by 8 in. with a heave of 63 ft.

¶ Already the most remarkable swimmer the world has ever known, Australia’s Latvia-born John Konrads, 17, thrashed through a Sydney pool to lower his world record for 220 yds. by .3 sec. with a time of 2:01.9, round into form for his ambitious attempt this month to capture or better every world freestyle record from 100 meters on up. In all but four events (100 meters, 110 yds., 200 meters, 400 meters), Konrads will be swimming against himself, since he already holds every other record.