PEAK OF THE SEASON

These are the most significant weeks of the indoor track year: the time when the great competitors assume command

The runners and jumpers flicked from Boston to Philadelphia and Washington and then back to Boston again, flexing their muscles and showing their teeth. But now—last Saturday, this Saturday and the next three Saturdays—the competition is in New York, in storied Madison Square Garden; and there, like it or not, is where the last heroes of the indoor track season are created. The Millrose Games last weekend, for example, proved the legitimacy of Sprinter David Sime's bid for fame. And the New York Athletic Club games this weekend may see Pole Vaulter Bob Richards (opposite, winning last year's NYAC vault) at long last lift himself higher than the nonpareil Cornelius Warmerdam's 13-year-old world record. That would be a treasured feather in the NYAC cap and a fitting one, since the idea of indoor track-and-field competition originated with the NYAC 87 years ago last November. For an account of another outstanding, though strikingly different, athletic club, turn to page 19.

BLUE SMOKE HAZE AND WHITE PUFF OF GUN STARTING 1955 BAXTER MILE ACCENT JUMBLED EXCITEMENT OF INDOOR TRACK. FRED DWYER (IN WHITE) BEAT SANTEE AND NIELSEN HOME

PARRY O'BRIEN, THE WORLD RECORD HOLDER, UNLEASHES SHOT FOR 57-FOOT 9½ INCH HEAVE

THREE PHOTOS

HY PESKIN