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The first act belonged mainly to Mark Spitz and his American teammates. Plowing out of the water like Poseidon, Spitz with his high-chested motion churned up the Schwimmhalle pool in the 200-yd. butterfly. There may have been butterflies in Spitz's stomach too: "I remembered what happened in Mexico City," he admitted. Nonetheless, Mark knocked 2.6 seconds off his own world record of 2:3.3 to win the first of his 1972 pendants of Olympic gold. Finishing in second and third place, respectively, were Gary Hall, Spitz's teammate at Indiana University and roommate in Munich, and Robin Backhaus of Redlands, Calif.
The Americans considered Spitz's opening triumph as little short of a sign from Neptune. Said Peter Daland, head coach of the U.S. men's swimming team: "If Mark had lost his first race, he could have been discouraged. But the Mark Spitz of '72 is a tough person." Tough enough, in fact, to anchor another victory in the 400-meter freestyle relay later that night, giving him two gold medals and two world records on his first day of Olympian work. The next evening he came to the blocks in the finals of the 200-meter freestyle. His toughest competition, as it turned out, came from gritty Teammate Steve Center, 21, of Lakewood, Calif., who only the day before was released from a hospital following chest surgery for a partially collapsed lung. Center led at the 100-and 150-meter turns, but Spitz, slicing through the water with his simian arms and immense hands, surged ahead of Center to clip .72 sec. from his own world record and gain another gold medal.
Harpooning. Two days later Spitz splashed his way to more gold and more records in the 100-meter butterfly (54.27 sec.) and 800-meter freestyle relay, thereby tying the record for gold medals (five) set in 1920 by an Italian fencer, Nedo Nadi. At week's end it seemed that nothing short of harpooning Spitz in mid-stroke would prevent him from garnering medals Nos. 6 and 7 in the 100-meter freestyle and the 400-meter medley relay.
His distaff teammates—all those pug-nosed kids who look as if they should be back at Madison High doing their geometry homework (and probably will be this fall)—quickly picked up the beat. The initial shocker was provided by Sandra Neilson, 16, a dimpled, giggly blonde from El Monte, Calif., who defeated Teammate Shirley Ba-bashoff, 15, and Australia's highly touted Shane Gould, 15, in the 100-meter freestyle. Although Sandra was the top-ranked U.S. girl in that event last year, she had qualified only third in the Olympic trials in Chicago. But in Munich she turned the water to steam at the outset, led at the turn and was never behind as she clocked a new Olympic record of 58.59. Later the American team of Sandra, Shirley, Jennifer Kemp and Jane Barkman swept to a thrilling arm's-length finish over a steady East German team in the 400-meter relay, in 3:55.19—another world record.