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Mathias was not the only surprise winner. Last week's Olympics provided London with a lot of upsets, some disappointments, and an impressive handful of new heroes & heroines. The U.S. was sweeping it. There was no official scoring of teams (the Olympics are meant to be individual, not national, contests), but Wembley Stadium spectators had to sit through the victorious blare of the Star-Spangled Banner again & again & again. Sportwriters' score cards showed the U.S. out in front 2 to 1, with Sweden second and France third. In last week's competitions:
¶ Just before the 200-meter final, U.S. Sprinter Mel Patton (TIME, Aug. 2) stretched out on the locker-room floor and dejectedly told a reporter that he was "just not up. I'll probably finish last." He was dead wrong. Patton beat Barney Ewell by inches. "For the first time in my life," he glowed afterwards, "I forgot to float. I just kept digging."
¶ Jamaica's favored Herbert McKenley lost the 400-meters to a fellow Jamaican, a pounding giant named Arthur Wint, who passed him about a dozen yards from the tape and won at 0:46.2 to equal the Olympic record.
¶ Sweden was expected to take the classic 1,500-meter race, and it did, but the "wrong" Swede won it. Fireman Henry Eriksson, who played second-fiddle in his own country, sloshed home first on the puddled red track two seconds slower than the Olympic record. The favorite, Lennart Strand, who had beaten Eriksson at least 15 times, was second.
¶ The U.S. swimming team, studded with such stars as Yale's Allen Stack and Philadelphia's Joe Verdeur, swept the men's swimming and diving championships clean. In the women's division, California's Ann Curtis set a new 400-meter record (5:17.8) and pretty, 23-year-old Mrs. Victoria Manalo Draves, part-Filipino wife of a Pasadena, Calif, electrical engineer, took both the springboard and high-diving titles.
¶ A 30-year-old Dutch housewife, long-legged Mrs. Fannie Blankers-Koen, made Olympic history by winning four gold medals: in the women's 80-meter hurdles, 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, and as anchor man in the 400-meter relay. She is the wife of The Netherlands' track & field coach, and a mother of two.