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In all, a record 6,500 athletes from 69 nations were ready to compete for Olympic medals,* in 149 events, ranging from basketball to yachting, from boxing to wrestling, from canoeing to weightlifting.
Speed v. Staying Power. Each country had its special sport. The French and Italians have always led the field in cycling, the French and Hungarians in fencing, the Swiss, Czechs and Germans in gymnastics. For the U.S., the Olympics have always been a track & field show, dominated by the U.S. since James B. Connolly took the first modern Olympic title at Athens in 1896 with a running triple jump (now the hop, step and jump) of 45ft.
This year, as usual, the U.S. team is strongest in track & field events. No one seems to stand a chance against the U.S.'s three shot-putters, Parry O'Brien, Darrow Hooper and Jim Fuchs, all capable of beating the European record by a good two feet. In the pole vault, an event the U.S. has lost only once, the Americans this year have two 15-footers, Rev. Bob Richards and Don Laz, who are expected to finish one-two, with the U.S.'s George Mattos in third place. The best U.S. high jumper, Walt Davis, is in a stratosphere (6 ft. 10½ in.) by himself.
The U.S. should have little trouble in the sprints and hurdles, with men like Harrison Dillard (no-meter hurdles), Charles Moore (400-meter hurdles), Andy Stanfield (200 meters) and Mai Whitfield (800 meters). But as the races lengthen from 1,500 meters to the 26-mile marathon, the Swedes, Finns, Slavs and Britons take over.
This perennial weak spot of U.S. athletes is explained by European critics as an accurate reflection of U.S. preoccupation with speed rather than guts and staying power. But this year, as in 1948, the U.S. has an answer to that. In the decathlon (ten events for one prize), the closest modern parallel to the original Olympic Games, no one has yet touched the record of Olympic Champion Robert Bruce Mathias.
Champion's Confidence. A lineal descendant of the ancient pentathlon,* the decathlon is the most searching test of athletic skill and endurance ever devised: four running events (100, 400 & 1,500 meters and the 110-meter hurdles); six field events (javelin, discus, shotput, pole vault, high jump and broad jump). At 21, already a veteran of eight decathlon meets, four times national champion and the world recordholder, handsome Bob Mathias meets to a remarkable degree the physical specification for this Olympic challenge. He is tall (6 ft. 3 in.), with the reaching stride of a hurdler or high-jumper, and husky enough (200 Ibs.) for the heavy-duty weight events. He has the steel-spring legs of a sprinter, the back muscles of a pole vaulter and the barrel chest of a distance man. He also has the nerveless self-control to make the most of his natural advantages, and the confidence of a champion who knows that his only real competition is the law of gravity and the pull of time.
Bob used to suffer through pre-meet agonies. "In my first meet," he says, "I kept thinking about that 1,500 meters I was going to have to run [the last event in the decathlon]. It always scared the devil out of me." But gradually he learned to "just keep thinking about the event I'm in while I'm competing in it. They don't give you points for worrying."