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Barefoot Cheek. On Friday afternoon, gaunt, bearded Lasse Viren became the first man ever to win the 5,000-and 10,000-meter races in successive Olympics. After dogging Portugal's Carlos Sousa Lopes for most of the grueling 10,000-meter final on Monday, Viren shot past him with a lap to go and then loped his light-footed way to a 30-meter lead at the finish line. As he ran a barefoot victory lap with his Tiger track shoes raised high above his head,* the 27-year-old policeman was paced by five ecstatic, flag-waving Finns who had hopped over a 6-ft. rail to join him. Four days later the distance was half as far, but the result was the same. In the last lap, Viren sprinted to the front and glided off from his challengers to win handily. Moments later he announced that he would try the marathon the next day, though he had never run one before. It was a game try through driving rain—to a good fifth-place finish.
Viren seems to bring himself to peak form only for Olympic Games. His track achievements since Munich have been minimal, but he began hard training this spring, spending weeks in Kenya and South America, where he could find both warm weather and high altitude. Now he is a national hero once again. Headlined one paper: VIREN HAS COME IN FROM THE COLD.
In the rural community of Myrskyla, where Viren was born and raised, his mother had to clear her living room of a jungle of congratulatory flowers so that she could have an unobstructed view of her television for the later races. Indeed, the two flower shops in Myrskyla (pop. 2,300) were sold out within hours of the 10,000-meter race, and the chairman of the communal council had to postpone his official visit of congratulation until a fresh supply arrived. After Viren won his medals at Munich, the community gave him a plot of land and raised money to help build a house on it. Now there is talk of giving him an island.
Less rewarding, according to some U.S. gold medalists, was their lot at home. Their refrain became a familiar—and unsettling—one at the Games. "America expects its athletes to wave a flag and win a medal every four years," complained Discus Champion Mac ("Wolfman") Wilkins. "But then you're supposed to take off that silly underwear and go out and make a decent living." Long-Jump Winner Arnie Robinson, whose wife Cynthia held down two jobs so that he could devote the past three years to training, warned, "There will be some big surprises in 1980, when we win even less than we did this year." Urging Government subsidies of $10,000 a year for top U.S. amateurs, Robinson added, "It's tough to beat athletes from other countries when they are kept like professionals." One U.S. gold medalist who disagreed was 400-meter Hurdler Edwin Moses (47.64 sec.), a physics major at Morehouse College in Atlanta. His view: "I run because I like it."