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¶ The meet's most dramatic moment was its very last. Ever since a bad leg kept him off the 1956 Olympic squad, Pole Vaulter Don Bragg, 29, had pointed for the 1960 team. At Palo Alto, Bragg sprinted down the runway, set his pole, hauled hard with his weight lifter's arms, and soared over the bar at 15 ft. 9¼ in. to break by an inch the world record of Marine Bob Gutowski. Then started one of the wildest victory dances in track history. Bellowing with delight, Bragg tossed wood shavings in the air, waved his arms about his head and bounded about the field like a dipsy kangaroo. Out of the stands pell-melled Bragg's fiancee, a 5 ft. 4? in., 112-lb. blonde named Terry Fiore, in her hands a rosary that had snapped under the strain. Bragg gleefully flung her over one broad shoulder like a bag of cement and started to dance again. When he had calmed down enough to be coherent, Bragg declared: "I don't want to push the Man Upstairs. All I want is a gold medal in the Olympics, and then Tarzan of the Apes in the movies."
Driven by the competition, the athletes shrugged off injury. Hammer Thrower Hal Connolly, 28, world record holder and 1956 Olympic gold-medal winner, was warming up when he pulled a muscle in the left side of his massive back. Asked Connolly coolly: "Is there a doctor here?" With a shot of novocain in his back, Connolly whirled out a throw of 212 ft. 3½ in. to finish second by 2 ft. 3½ in. to Al Hall, 25, a 205-lb. poultryman from Southington, Conn.
After he had thrown the javelin 269 ft. 7½ in.. Bill Alley, 23, caught his spikes in the grass, pulled a muscle and spiked himself badly in his right calf as he fell. His leg bandaged, Alley limped back to throw six more times, but could not better his first try, finished a gallant second to Marine Lieut. Al Cantello, who had a mark of 277 ft. 7 in. "Oh, I wanted to win, man," said Alley. "I wanted to win."
Some established stars lost out alto gether. Broad Jumper Gregg Bell, 29, a gold-medal winner in the Melbourne Games of 1956, finished a frustrated fourth. Pole Vaulter Bob Gutowski failed to qualify. Toughest of all was the disappointment in the shotput. Army Lieut. Bill Nieder, 26, holds the world record at 65 ft. 7 in. but, hampered by a bad right knee, he reverted to his old line-drive style of toss and managed only a weak 61 ft. 9¾ in. to finish fourth behind Dallas Long (63 ft. 3¾ in.), Parry O'Brien (62 ft. 3¾ in.) and Dave Davis (62 ft. 3½ in.). "Just call me choker, that's all," said Nieder.
Out of the battle of Palo Alto came the finest U.S. Olympic track team in history. But the rest of the world has also improved sharply since 1956's Melbourne Olympics. As a team, Russia will be the biggest threat to the continuing domination of track events by the U.S. With their trials still to come, Russian coaches last week were speaking guardedly of their young stars but praised a pair of sprinters named Leonid Bartenyev and Edwin Ozolin. Other sprinters around the world are also pointing for the U.S., including Germany's Armin Hary and Britain's Peter Radford.