Olympics end as s
* Ceremonies
finish off
XXI Games
MONTREAL (AP) N The* 1976
Summer Olympics closed yesterday the
way they began, mired in controversy
but managing to keep alive the flame
symbolizing that mankind would like to
live with harmony among nations.
Colorful closing ceremonies in the still
unfinished Olympic Stadium were the
denoument of these troubled but
fascinating Games. Equestrian teams
competed for medals yesterday in the
jL last event.
Meanwhile, Olympic, politics con
tinued with two more Romanian athletes
defecting to Canada and the Russians
still trying to get back their 17 : year-old
diver who gave notice of defecting.
A New Zealand member of the
. International Olympic Committee
* pushed his plan for a central site for
these Games in Greece, where they
began 2,500 years ago. That would head
off in the future the kind of problem
faced by Montreal a $9OO million debt
left from the 1976 Games.
“It could be a 'way of ending all our
said Lance Cross. “If'we
-had a permanent stadium and other
facilities in one country and Greece is
the ideal place for traditional reasons
we might find the true Olympic spirit
again.” •
But even this suggestion met with
controversy. . Philip O. Krumm,
president of the United States Olympic
' Committee, was against the idea.
“I think that would penalize many
countries who would like'to host the
Games,” he said. “I would rather see the
Games be .rotated.”
Krumm said he knew of 10 cities with
facilities available right now to hold the
' Olympics.
Despite the pullout of 30 nations
because of political arguments, despite
nationalism, charges of cheating and
bad judging, there was a feeling among
the organizers and athletes Sunday that
these Games have been a success
n
“The Games and the name will carry
on,” Krumm said. “We/face some
gigantic problems of organization within
the lOC, but I’m sure the'lOC realizes
that in the future i.t may have to do some
restructuring. However, the enthusiasm
of the crowds and the athletes is
testimony to the success of the Games.”
The Montreal crowds were warm and,
as Krumm said, enthusiastic. Perhaps
more important, more than a billion
people around the jyorld watched the
events on television! ABC-TV, which
beamed them to the United States,
claimed an unprecedented audience.
Someone out there cares.
The Russians, who will hold the 1980
Summer Games ■in Moscow, were
everywhere in-evidence in Montreal.
They held a reception aboard a Soviet
ship for the press. They passed out
volumes of promotional information.
Everyone wondered what it would be
1 like in four years when the Olympic
torch is passed again.
Montreal did not wind up with the
black eye that some expected. Mayor
Jean Drapeau, once the goat of the
Games when costs skyrocketed,
regained prestige and there is even a
v movement afoot to name the Olympic
Stadium after him. He was cheered
lustily by Montreal crowds.
And, in general, it was agreed that
Montreal did a pretty good job, con-
sidering that labor strife, politics and
every other kind of harassment got in
• the way.
Many of the athletes had departed by
yesterday, leaving a token force to
participate in the closing ceremony.
Bruce Jertner wears Olympic gold after record setting victory
in§the decathlon. ■
Howard Davis was one of five U.S. boxers to bring home gold medals from Montreal.
4th Rumanian defects
Boxers pace U.S. effort
MONTREAL (AP) The gold medal
bash staged by American boxers was the
product of coaching, discipline and
togetherness. The fighters made a
major contribution to the U.S. Olympic
performance.
But its effect on amateur boxing in the
United States is uncertain, and that
means continued success in the Games
also is uncertain.
“We hope to draw more interest now in
boxing,” said Pat Nappi of Syracuse,
N.Y., head coach of the team that won
five gold medals Saturday night and
scored a shutout in its three showdown
matches with Cub_a.
r v But''despite Amateur Athletic Union
and Golden Glove tournaments, interest
in amateur boxing lags during off
Olympic years. At least that has been
the rule.
And because of the fact the amateur
sport is not subsidized to any extent in
the United States, good young amateurs
often take the step toward the money
and glamor of a professional career
, rather than make the sacrifice of
working toward the Olympics.
A plus for the U.S. Olympic boxing
effort, expecially if more interest is
generated now, is that the American
team can be built on good young fighters
who are not past their peak.
Cuba got three gold medals, one by
heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson, but
three of its world champions were able
to get only one bronze between them.
The oldest member of the U.S. team
was 25-year old Army Sgt. Charles
Mooney of Ft. Bragg, N.C., who won a
silver medal in the bantamweight class.
The only member with previous Olympic
experience was featherweight Davey
Armstrong, a 20-year old from Puyallup,
Wash. ' -
None of the 11 will be back in 1980.
Howard Davis of Glen Cove, N.Y., the
lightweight gold medal winner, and John
Tate of Knoxville,, Tenn., the
heavyweight bronze medalist, will turn
pro. The gold medal brothers mid
dleweight Mike Spinks of St. Louis and
light heavyweight Leon Spinks, a U.S.
Marine corporal are considering pro
careers. Leon still has a year to serve in
the Corps.
The other seven said they are giving
up the sport to pursue other careers.
They include flyweight champion Leo
Randolph, an 18-year old from Tacoma
Wash., who still has a year of high
school, and light welterweight champ
Sugar Ray Leonard of Palmer Park,
Md., who plans to attend the University
of Maryland.
OTTAWA (AP)' Two Olympic
athletes from Romania defected to
Canada yesterday bringing the total of
East European Communist bloc
defectors to five, while Soviet diver
Sergei Nemtsanov rebuffed a Russian
attempt to bring him home, immigration
officials reported.
Officials announcing the decision of
the Romanians to seek' refugee status
declined to specify their sport or sex.
Jenner rides high
in decathlon win
MONTREAL (AP) There was
American Bruce Jenner, the handsome
Californian, establishing himself as the
“World’s Greatest Athlete. ’ ’
There was amazing Lasse Viren, the
Finnish policeman, performing one of
the most Herculean feats in Olympic
history. There was Alberto Juantorena,
the big Cuban, and Tatiana Kazankina,
the smooth-striding Russian, proving
their dominance in the middle distance
races.
And there was Irena Szewinska, the 30-
year-old Polish housewife, winning a
seventh Olympic gold medal.
They were the outstanding stars in a
star, studded cast of thousands of the
world’s best track and field athletes,
who captivated and thrilled fans in the
Olympic Stadium for eight days.
Jenner, perhaps, was the most
glamorous. As the favorite in the
punishing, 10-event, two day decathlon,
he grabbed hold of the audience early
with the best first day performance of
his career, then capped his effort with a
‘ world record effort of 8,618 points.
The appreciative crowd gave him a
long standing ovation. His pretty wife,
Chrystie, wearing a “Go Jenner Go” T
shirt, had tears welling in her eyes as
she fought her way onto the track and
warmly embraced her tired husband in
an emotional and dramatic moment.
Viren, so skinny it appeared he could
fall apart running only a shqrt distance,
irit, heroics live on
An immigration department
spokesman reported that Nemtsanov
told Soviet officials at a meeting that he
wanted to remain in Canada. He was
subsequently issued a document
allowing him to stay on until he makes a
request for status as a landed im
migrant, the spokesman said.
The defections announced yesterday
brought to four the number of Romanian
Olympic athletes seeking political
asylum in Canada. The two other refu
gees are a rower and a canoeist.
The immigration spokesman said
Nemtsanov, 17, who left the Olympic
Village Thursday met for about an hour
at an undisclosed location with the
Soviet consul general in Montreal, the
diver’s coach and a senior Canadian
immigration official.
“He indicated he wished to remain in
Canada," the spokesman said. “He was
interviewed after the meeting and given
a legal entry document which clears up
his status here until he makes further
requests.”
A Soviet Embassy spokesman in
Ottawa confirmed the meeting and said
Nemtsanov “appeared in a depressed
state.”
won the 5,000 and 10,000-meter races for
the second straight Olympics and almost
made it a “triple,” finishing fifth in his
first marathon race.
The big, broad-shouldered Juan
torena, built more like a football player,
powered his way to victory in the men’s
400 and 800-meter races, setting a world
record in the 800.
Miss Kazankina, not well known in
ternationally until breaking the four
minute barrier in the women’s 1,500 a
month ago, outclassed the fields in the
800 and 1,500 meters, winning the shorter
race in world record time.
And Mrs. Szewinska, mother of a 6-
year-old son, capped her fourth Olym
pics with a record smashing run in the
women’s 400 for her third gold medal
and seventh over-all. Only two track and
field athletes ever have won more
medals in Olympic history.
In addition to Jenner, the United
States won five gold medals: young
Edwin Moses in the 40 meter hurdles,
bearded Mac Wilkins in the discus,
veteran Arnie Robinson in the long jump
and the men’s relay teams in the 400 and
1,600 meter races..
The six golds equalled the total won at
the 1972 Games in Munich.
The Americans also matched their
total of 22 medals won four years ago,
and they were divided exactly the same
way 19 for the men and three for the
women.
Despite troubles , athletes
keep Olympic flame alive
MONTREAL (AP) Adieu Jeux de la
XXI Olympiade Montreal. You were a
corker. How can we ever forget you?
You were ugly and beautiful, insane
and inspiring, ridiculous and glorious.
Out of the morass of political
finagling, power struggles, injustices,
cheating and doping scandals emerged
athletes of heroic mold who kept the
flame alive.
A wisp of a Romanian girl named
Nadia Comaneci, no bigger than a toy
doll won the hearts of the world with her
fairy-like grace on the gymnastic bars
and beams. A long-striding Cuban
named Alberto Juantorena electrified
galleries with unprecedented victories in
the 400 and 800 meter distances and
bearded Lasse Viren of little Finland
ignite'd memories of the great Paavo
Nurmi and the matchless Emil Zatopek
with an exhibition of distance running
that defied the imagination.
After becoming the first man in
history to win the 5,000 and 10,000 meter
back busters in consecutive Olympics,
the indefatigable Finn went out to run
the more than 26 miles of the marathon
without a day of rest. It mattered little
whether he won or lost. It was a
momentous feat that he even tried.
The big Russian bear got mustard on
its face just as four years ago the United
States turned into a stumbling fumbling
giant.
Trying to be on best behavior because
it is to host the 1980 Games in Moscow
the massive and perennially powerful
USSR, still winner of more medals than
any other country, experienced one
disaster after another.
First, a respected Soviet army officer
and swordsman of international repute
was caught rewiring his blade in the
fencing phase of the pentathlon. He was
stripped of his medals and sent home in
disgrace. The USSR apologized.
The Russian coacn was accused of
trying to fix a diving contest judge. The
champion Soviet water polo team,
beaten, failed to show up for its next
match and had to be forced to continue.
Olga Korbut, pocket-sized gymnast
sensation, at Munich, won just one silver
medal this time—a broken woman at 21..
The only basketball team ever to take
the title from the United States lost in the ’
semifinals. Sprinter Valery Borzov was
dethroned and, in the Games’ fading
hours, a teenaged Soviet diver defected,
causing Russia to bluff a pullout which
was called and over-trumped.
The United States, which saw its best
athletes in 1972 disqualified for falling on
the track in heats, failing to meet time
- schedules and;even in the case-of a ‘
young swimmer have a gold medal
nullified by a dope test, could breathe a
Grecian Olympics?
MONTREAL (AP) The XXI Olym
pic Games, scarred by ugly political
brawling, ended on a note of idealism
with talk of a permanent site for the
Games in Greece.
Hold the Olympics in the land where gone into the feasibility of building there,
they began 2,500 years ago, and political At present, Olympia houses the lOC’s
interference and commercialism will Olympic Academy, used for lectures
disappear, say proponents of the plan. and coaching seminars.
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Mike Shined
The focal hero in the 1976 Olympiad was Mike Shine, a Penn *
State graduate, who took a silver medal in the 400 meter
lyjrdles held last Sunday. * --
Hie Daily Collegian Monday, August 2,1976 5
sign of relief.
For the Yanks, it was not a disaster
Olympics, although the proud
Americans finished with a cache of gold
medals smaller than that of the USSR
and East Germany, the latter a country
of only 17 million.
Uncle Sam’s nieces and nephews won
some and lost some, finishing on a high
note in track and field, disappointing in
women’s swimming but making marks
in such sports as judo, equestrian,
women’s basketball and distaff rowing.
Some U.S. athletes, foremost of whom
were discus ace Mac Wilkins and high
jumper Dwight Stones, used the Games
as a forum to decry the inefficiency of
the American system of building in
ternational sports teams. '
“I would like to see East Germany win
all the medals,” Wilkins said petulantly.
“I have a hangup about French
Canadians,” said Stones. “They are
rude not to have been ready for the
Games.”
There is a lesson hidden in this
somewhere. They at least could stand up
and talk about it, compete and go home
without discipline. If they had worn
Russian uniforms, they might have
looked forward to a winter holiday in
Siberia. If they had been East Germans,
it would have been back to garbage duty.
“You can’t have a national team and
freedom, too,” said Philip O. Krumm,
president of the U.S. Olympic Com
mittee.
“At least you don’t see people
defecting from the United States,” said
shot putter George Woods.
“Our system made it possible for me
to do what I did,” said decathlon winner
Bruce Jenner, who appears headed for a
$1 million contract in show business.
Some 7,000 athletes, as many or more
newsmen and untold thousands of
.visitors came to the Games with
reservations. The Canadians had vir
tually bankrupted themselves with a $1.5
billion outlay for a massive concrete
complex and Olympic Village that was
built to withstand earthquakes and the
wear of centuries.
Entering the huge stadium, one ex
pected to see Ben Hur riding through the
portals behind a chariot pulled by, six
horses.
Nothing was supposed to be complete.
The Games were doomed to failure. Yet,
after little Taiwan had been ejected in a
political maneuver and close to 30
African nations pulled out in a racial
protest, the Canadian organizers took
hold and guided the giant spectacle
through the fortnight with unerring
hands:
The Games opened like a Roman
pageant and closed like a Sunday picnic.
“It could be a way of ending all our
difficulties,” Lance Cross, lOC member
for New Zealand, said at a news confer
ence yesterday.
Cross said he had thought of Olympia,
the site of the ancient Games, but had not
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