Skip to main content

A roundup of the sports information of the week

GOLF—GENE LITTLER,the stoic from California, stroked a five-under-par 67 in the final round ofthe $100,000 Thunderbird tournament on the Upper Montclair (N.J.) course to wingolf's biggest cash prize. $25,000, and his second tournament of the season(see page 16). Littler forged relentlessly ahead with six birdies to beatnewcomer Jack Nicklaus by two strokes. Nicklaus, who shot the tournament'slowest round, a 65, the day before, was in the same threesome with the winnerbut could not take advantage of Littler's brief faltering moments on the lastnine. Steady Dow Finsterwald came in third tied with Wes Ellis at 280, andalways-favored Arnold Palmer finished a miserable 35th.

Sandra Haynie ofFort Worth won the Austin (Texas) Civitan Open with a 72-hole total of 289,finishing one stroke ahead of Mickey Wright, who was just unsteady enough toallow Miss Haynie, 19, to capture her first tournament victory since she becamea professional last year.

HARNESSRACING—HENRY T. ADIOS ($3.20) set a new world record for the mile on afive-eighths-mile track while winning the $121,500 HTA pace at Scioto Downs inColumbus, Ohio. The brilliant 4-year-old, who had established the record of1:58 1/5 only two weeks earlier, clopped home this time in 1:58 fiat, undergood handling by Driver Stanley Dancer. The rest of the eight-horse field allfinished in less than two minutes, making this one of harness racing's finestpaces.

HORSERACING—JAIPUR ($7.70) barely nosed out Admiral's Voyage in a rousing finish tothe $153,300 Belmont Stakes at Belmont, biggest and last purse of the TripleCrown (see page 14). Crimson Satan, developing a habit of finishing just behindthe leaders, did so again, taking third a length and a quarter in back ofAdmiral's Voyage. Derby winner Decidedly couldn't go the longer (mile and ahalf) distance, and pulled up in fourth, while Preakness winner Greek Moneyended up seventh.

Larkspur, a22-to-1 shot, skittered around a seven-horse pileup at Epsom Downs to win anEnglish Derby in which the fallen caused more excitement than the victorious.The seven—including the favored Hethersett—crashed to the ground when leaderCrossen tired, slowed down and caused Romulus, right on his heels, to stumble.They both went down in front of the pounding 26-horse field just as it wascrowding into the downhill dash to Tatten-ham Corner. One horse. King CanuteII, had to be destroyed, and six jockeys were hurt in the 183-year-old Derby'sworst accident. Larkspur is almost a medley of racing traditions: Irish bredand trained, owned by New York Businessman Raymond R. Guest (WinstonChurchill's cousin), and ridden by Australian Neville Sellwood.

Flaming Page($2.80), owned by Canadian Multimillionaire E. P. Taylor, won the $39,154Canadian Oaks by a relaxing 4½ lengths after taking charge in the stretch atToronto's Woodbine track. The filly turned the mile and an eighth in 1:52.

LACROSSE—THE SOUTHtook command of the field in the traditional all-star game against the North inNew Brunswick, N.J., winning a rough-and-tumble contest, 14-4. Buddy Beardmore,All-America midfielder from the University of Maryland, led the onslaught witha goal in each quarter.

SOCCER—THE WORLDCHAMPIONSHIP in Chile went down to its last week with two South Americancountries and two Iron Curtain teams still in contention. When attendance fellfar below expectations, officials hastily switched the schedule and promised tolet the home team play in the bigger Santiago stadium in the semifinals, if itgot that far. Thus inspired. Chile went out and licked the Russians 2-1. Butthe schedule change apparently dismayed the West Germans, who would have beenbriskly rerouted to smaller Vina del Mar. They slumped against a youngerYugoslavian team, losing 1-0. Czechoslovakia, handed a stunning upset by ascrubby Mexican team earlier (3-1), bounced back with a victory over Hungary,1-0, and Brazil overcame England, 3-1. In the semifinals Brazil faces Chile andCzechoslovakia plays Yugoslavia.

SWIMMING—FREDBALDASARE. 38, of Cocoa, Fla. set a world record—to be sure, no one had everdone it before—by swimming the three-mile Strait of Messina from Sicily toCalabria in three hours and 42 minutes, underwater.

TENNIS—DARLENEHARD, the U.S.'s best woman amateur, displayed every bit of her championshipform in a brilliant show of mid-court volleying to quickly subdue Judy Tegartof Australia in the Northern England grass court women's finals, a tuneup forthis week's Wightman Cup matches at Wimbledon. The blonde Californian broughtdown Miss Tegart, who has embarked on a tennis tour of the world, in a quicktwo sets, 6-3, 6-2. Top-seeded Margaret Smith, the Aussie powerhouse, was upsetin the quarter-finals—her first loss in nine months—by unknown Carole Caldwellof Santa Monica, ranked No. 9 in the U.S. Mike Sangster became the firstEnglishman to win the men's singles title at the tournament since 1949, asAustralia's awesome aces were busy taking surprising beatings in Barcelona.Neale Fraser and Roy Emerson lost in the semifinals, Fraser to the surprisinglyagile Manuel Santana of Spain, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3, and Emerson to India's RamanathanKrishnan, 6-0, 6-2, 6-2. Santana went on to win, 3-6. 6-3, 6-4, 8-6, overKrishnan. Aussie Rod Laver, however, was pressing on regardless, in a coolerclimate. He won the Norwegian open in Oslo, his fourth straight European titlethis spring (he already has the Swiss, French and Italian) with a victory overJan Erik Lundquist. 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Then a few days later in Stockholm hetoo lost, while trying for the Swedish championship.

TRACK &FIELD—JIM BEATTY, running his first race since a leg injury put him off"the track last March, set a world record for the two-mile at the SouthernPacific AAU championships in Los Angeles. The little man with an automaton'slegs used a sensational last lap to finish in 8:29.8. This was .2 second betterthan the unofficial mark New Zealand's Murray Halberg set last year, and 2.2seconds under the recognized record held by Albert Thomas of Australia since1958. Jim Grelle followed Beatty in with 8:36, his best effort. Dallas Longflung the shotput 65 feet 2¾ inches for the meet's only other highlight.

Gary Gubner, NYU'ssturdy sophomore, put the shot 63 feet 4 inches at the Metropolitan AAU meet inNew York. It was the best outdoor throw of the year in the East. Al Oerter madefour fine discus throws over 190 feet—his longest was 199 feet 7½ inches—butwas still disappointed. He's out to retrieve the world mark which he held,unofficially, for 17 days this spring.

Vladimir Trusenevof the U.S.S.R. unseated Oerter as discus king last week with a202-foot-2¾-inch throw in Leningrad to set the world's newest discus mark.

Igor Ter-Ovanesyancontinued Russia's spurt of springtime record-breaking by topping RalphBoston's world broad-jump mark with a leap of 27 feet 3 inches in Yerevan, thecapital of Soviet Armenia. Ter-Ovanesyan, who is the European record holder,competed against Boston in the winter of 1961 in New York and at the RomeOlympics, but never defeated him. His new record is 1¼ inches better thanBoston's best.

WRESTLING—JAPANgrappled through the AAU senior championships in New York to win five of eightfreestyle titles and three of the eight Greco-Roman prizes. American freestylewinners were Dan Brand of the San Francisco Olympic Club, who retained hiscrown in the 213.5-pound class; Jim Ferguson, also of the San Francisco club,in the 171.5-pound class; and Dave Auble of the New York Athletic Club, in thelight 125.5 division. All three are practically sure to be picked for theAmerican team that will go to the World Championships in Toledo, where it willhave to face those well-conditioned Japanese.

MILEPOSTS—VOTED:INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE delegates from 100 member nations, meetingbehind the red-brick walls of the Kremlin, the following: to take South Africaout of the Olympics if apartheid policies were not stopped within the year; tomake North Korea eligible for the Tokyo Games if a compromise to form a jointteam with recalcitrant South Korea was not arrived at before September; torequest that international sports federations refuse to sanction worldchampionships in locales that barred entries from any country.

SIGNED: PANCHOGONZALEZ, as coach of the Davis Cup team, by the USLTA. who snapped him up fromthe ranks of retired professionals in the hope that he will put some pro polishinto a lackluster squad.

SOLD: BROOK MEADESTABLE STABLE, the Thoroughbred holdings of the late Isabel Dodge Sloane. At ahuge Belmont Park dispersal auction, 56 Brook-meade horses brought $1,000,300.an average of $17,862. In separate sales 38 broodmares went to John W.Galbreath and the 777-acre Upperville, Va. Brookmeade Farm was sold to WilliamCrossman Jr. Three of Mrs. Sloane's nieces bought six horses and retainedTrainer Elliott Burch to carry on in the name of Brookmeade Stable, thuskeeping the famous blue-and-white silks in racing.