The tall, redheaded sprinter with the free-floating stride made his bid on the turn of the 200-meter dash. Challenging for the lead, Dave Sime, the world's fastest man (TIME, Jan. 30 et seq.) and the nation's prime Olympic prospect in two events, suddenly grimaced, slowed to a painful hobble with a pulled groin muscle.
Because of the U.S. Olympic Committee's self-imposed arbitrary method of selecting the U.S. Olympic team, the injury suffered by Dave Sime last week may keep him from running the 200-meter dash in the games at Melbourne this November. The U.S. team will automatically be picked from the top men in the Olympic tryouts at month's end, but Sime's injury was not likely to heal in time to let him first qualify in the 200 meters at a pretrial meet this week in the National A.A.U. championships at Bakersfield, Calif. Fortunately, Sime qualified in the 100-meter dash (time: a fair 0:10.6) last week in the intercollegiate championships at Berkeley, Calif, before pulling up lame.
But even with its fastest runner restricted, the U.S. found good reason last week to hope for a peck of gold medals at Melbourne in track and field events—the heart of the Olympics. Warming up for the Olympic tryouts, the nation's collegiate stars broke one U.S. and nine meet records (winner of the meet: U.C.L.A.) at Berkeley, while the nation's fastest and/or strongest servicemen in short pants broke one world and two American records in the interservice championships at Los Angeles. In all, athletes in the two meets beat Olympic marks in four events, tied in another.
All year long, American athletes have been popping records like soap bubbles, so far have set new world marks in ten events. In the 24 Olympic track and field events, U.S. athletes right now are good bets to win 13 first places, and, in a few—the pole vault, shotput, 800 meters, etc.—Americans may well finish one-two-three. Nine long-legged American Olympic prospects have high-jumped higher than the Olympic record (6 ft. 8¼ in. by the U.S.'s Walter Davis); three have tossed the shot over 60 ft. (far past the Olympic mark of 57 ft. 1½ in. and the equivalent in the muscle-set of the four-minute mile). A quartet of pole vaulters has cleared 15 ft.—three-quarters of an inch above the games'mark. In addition, American sprinters and middle-distance men are thick-and fast—as gazelles.
Top Olympic prospects: Shotputter Parry O'Brien, the rugged, big (6 ft. 3 in., 235 Ibs.) Californian who smashed his own world record this last week with a flip of 61 ft. 4 in.; Dashman Lou Jones of the Second Army, world record holder in the 400 meters at 0:45.4, who was 0.3 sec. off that time last week; Middle-Distance Runner Arnie Sowell, a wisp of a Negro with the delicate legs of a thoroughbred, who set an American record in the 800 meters at 1 :46.7, just a second slower than the worlds record; and, of course, Dave Sime, world record holder in the 220-yd. dash and the 220-yd. low hurdles, and co-holder of the world's record in the 100-yd. dash. As a backstop to Sime, Abilene Christian's Bobby Morrow qualified for the final tryouts last week with a 200-meter dash of 0:10.4 and a 200-meter run of 0:20.6.