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While public attention was focused last week on the water sports, the first gold medal of the Games was actually awarded in an event that only a Mafia button man could love: the slow-fire pistol shoot. It went to a Swedish gas station owner named Ragnar Skanaker who attributed his championship-caliber shooting to the fact that unlike opponents who place their nonfiring hand in their pockets, he ties his down to his belt. Another early gold medal, in prone small-bore-rifle shooting, went to a tall, sturdy North Korean soldier, Ho Jun Li, 22. When asked what had inspired his victory, Ho replied in English: "I've been personally told by President Kim II Sung before I left for Munich that 'you are doing the shooting as sharply as if you would try to hit a class enemy.' That is what I did." South Viet Nam's Olympiad roster of two, Mrs. Ho Ang Fhi Huong and Mr. Ho Hinh Fhu, are both pistol shooters and both come from Saigon. They dropped out at the end of the first day after placing 59th and 56th, respectively, in their events.
As always, the Olympics had its embarrassing exhibitions of poor sportsmanship. In the water-polo contest between Yugoslavia and Cuba, two Communist nations of decidedly divergent views, the Schwimmhalle pool wound up as bloody as the water in the Russian-Hungarian match of 1956. The Yugoslavs won, 7-5. A violent misunderstanding between the Malaysian and West German field-hockey teams caused a lengthy interruption of the game and the Games' first patient, West Germany's Uli Vos, who was admitted to the Olympic Village hospital with multiple contusions caused by Malaysian hockey sticks. West Germany won 1-0.
The modern pentathlon also proceeded in the shadow of scandal. Major Monty Mortimer, manager of the British team, charged at a news conference that the Russians had fired well in that morning's shooting only because they had been drugged. "When those Russians came to the shooting stand," he insisted, "they appeared as calm as if they had just returned from their morning constitutional." It was pointed out that the urine tests were negative, but Monty harrumphed, "Means nothing. Why, I myself have seen a competitor in Mexico City who kept a little bottle of urine hidden in his pants, which he promptly emptied into the test glass."
About one Olympic fact, however, there can be little controversy: Mark Spitz is in as complete command of his sport as any other athlete in history. There are many reasons for his proficiency, but his physical attributes alone would seem to give him a pool-length advantage over a greased porpoise. He carries 170 Ibs. easily on a tightly compacted 6-ft. frame. Hanging from his wide shoulders are a pair of long supple arms terminating in a pair of scoop-shovel hands that can pull him cleanly through the water with scarcely a ripple. He also has the curious ability to flex his lower legs slightly forward at the knees, which allows him to kick 6 to 12 in. deeper in the water than his opponents. Says his father Arnold, a production engineer in Oakland, Calif.: "Mark's whole body is so flexible that the water just seems to slip by him."