A roundup of the sports information of the week
BASKETBALL—NBA: BOSTON (46-23) boosted its lead in the East to 1½ games over the 76ers with four straight wins before a loss to the Bullets. PHILADELPHIA (44-24), only half a game out a week earlier, won three and lost two, while CINCINNATI (41-27) and NEW YORK (27-39) each split four for the week. In the Western Division LOS ANGELES (38-31) won two and lost to the Celtics 115-108. Second-place BALTIMORE (33-36), five games back, split with Philadelphia, then beat the Celtics 132-92. SAN FRANCISCO (30-39) and ST. LOUIS (28-37) each won one out of three, while DETROIT (19-50) lost four in a row.
BOATING—"The roughest race I ever saw," said JERRY LANGER of Miami Beach after being declared winner of the 172-mile Sam Griffith Memorial ocean race for powerboats, run off Florida's east coast in 8-to-10-foot seas and 23-mph winds. Langer, in his 20-foot dual-engine outboard, and former world champion ocean racer Jim Wynne, driving a 32-foot aluminum craft with two 445-hp gas turbine engines, were the only two entrants out of 31 to complete the race. Wynne actually came in first, but race officials considered his boat experimental and ruled him ineligible for the title. Current world champion Dick Bertram's 36-foot Brave Moppie, valued at $100,000, sank while leading 40 miles from the start.
BOWLING—SKEE FOREMSKY of El Paso won his first PBA title in four years when he defeated Dave Davis of Phoenix 211-204 to win the $7,500 first prize in the $40,000 Las Vegas Open.
FIGURE SKATING—PEGGY FLEMING of Colorado Springs took the world title from Canada's Petra Burka, the defending champion, in Davos, Switzerland (page 58), while Austria's EMMERICH DANZER, the European champion, won the men's title. His countryman, Wolfgang Schwarz, placed second, with Gary Visconti of Detroit third and Scott Allen of Smoke Rise, N.J. fourth. The Russian husband-and-wife team, LYUDMILA and OLEG PROTOPOPOV, retained its pairs championship, while another Russian pair, Tatiana Zhuk and Aleksandr Gorelik, placed second. The youthful sister and brother from Seattle, Cynthia and Ronald Kauffman, were surprise bronze medalists and Britain's BERNARD FORD and DIANE TOWLER took the ice-dancing title.
HOCKEY—NHL: MONTREAL (31-16-7) took three games to run its winning streak to five and zipped into a tie for first place with CHICAGO (31-18-7), winner of two out of three. Bobby Hull was shut out by a fourth-string rookie goalie—19-year-old Al Smith—in a 3-2 loss to the Maple Leafs but scored a goal apiece in his next two games to lift his total to 49, just two shy of breaking the season record. DETROIT (26-21-9) slumped eight points away from the lead by losing three games and ended the week only three points ahead of fourth-place TORONTO (25-20-8), which won two and tied one. NEW YORK (14-33-9), with a 1-1-1 record, tiptoed out of the cellar as BOSTON (15-34-6) lost all three games it played.
HORSE RACING—BILL SHOEMAKER, hopping from coast to coast, won three stakes races in three days and then, after a day off, took the Santa Anita Handicap. He rode unbeaten SABER MOUNTAIN ($3.60) to victory by a head in the $62,900 San Felipe Handicap (page 56) at Santa Anita, and the next day was aboard Ogden Phipps's BUCKPASSER ($2.40) for another win by a head in Hialeah's $30,400 Everglades. Back in California a day later Shoemaker won the Santa Barbara Handicap with STRAIGHT DEAL ($11.60) by three lengths, and on Saturday rode LUCKY DEBONAIR ($8.20) to a length victory in the $145,000 Santa Anita Handicap. For his week's work, Shoemaker earned $18,851.
At Pimlico, IMPRESSIVE ($3.40), a stablemate of Buckpasser and another Phipps candidate for the Derby, won the $27,700 Pimlico Handicap by three lengths over Quinta.
Kentucky Jug ($7.20), ridden by Bill Boland, gave Calumet Farm its first win in a $100,000 race since 1962 when he won the $103,800 Hialeah Turf Cup in Miami by 2¼ lengths over Walnut Hill Farm's Pillanlelbun.
MOTOR SPORTS—RICHARD PETTY of Randleman, N.C. won the Daytona 500—cut to 495 miles because of rain—by averaging 160 mph (page 24).
SKIING—NORWAY took five gold medals in the world Nordic championships in Oslo as BJORN WIRKOLA, a 22-year-old shipping clerk, won both the Holmenkollen Hill special 90-meter and the 70-meter jumps, and 24-year-old GJERMUND EGGEN took two individual cross-country gold medals—the 50 kilometer and 15-kilometer—and anchored the winning 40-kilometer relay team (page 51). EERO MANTYRANTA of Finland was the winner of the men's 30-kilometer cross-country. West Germany's GEORG THOMA gained the Nordic combined title (consisting of jumping and a 15-kilometer race) for the fourth straight year and immediately announced his retirement. Russia swept the three women's cross-country events as ALEVTINA KOLCHINA took the five-kilometer and CLAUDIA BOYARSKIKH the 10-kilometer and the 15-kilometer relay.
SLED DOGS—DR. CHARLES BELFORD of Deerfield, Mass. won the world championship at Laconia, N.H. for the third straight year.
SQUASH RACQUETS—MRS. NEWTON MEADE JR., 29, a housewife from Philadelphia, defeated defending champion Joyce Davenport, 24, also of Philadelphia, 15-11, 11-15, 15-7, 15-12, to take the U.S. women's singles title in Hartford, Conn.
SWIMMING—KAREN MUIR, a 13-year-old South African, regained her 110-yard world backstroke mark—broken by [1/10] of a second (1:08.6) only five days earlier by Ann Fairlie, 16, another South African swimmer—when she recorded a 1:08.3 in a Durban (South Africa) meet. Miss Muir set her original backstroke record last August.
TENNIS—Stockbroker CHUCK McKINLEY of Port Washington, N.Y. beat Puerto Rico's Charles Pasarell in the last match of the Vanderbilt International Invitation Round Robin Tournament in New York to clinch the title with 219 points.
TRACK & FIELD—Australia's RON CLARKE said he would set a new world record in the two-mile at the Golden Gate indoor meet in San Francisco and he did. His 8:28.8 smashed Jim Beatty's 1963 mark by two seconds. In other events, JIM GRELLE of Portland, Ore. set a new meet record with a 4:00.3 mile, and ART WALKER of the Southern California Striders broke the hop-step-and-jump meet mark with a 52-foot 5¾-inch leap. LENNOX MILLER, a Jamaican studying at USC, ran the 60-yard dash in six seconds flat, [1/10] of a second off the world record.
In the Big Eight meet in Kansas City, JIM RYUN, the 18-year-old freshman from Kansas, ran the first sub-four-minute mile in the U.S. this season—a 3:59.6, the fastest ever on a 12-lap track. Competing in the varsity division, JOHN LAWSON won both the mile (4:04.8) and the two-mile (9:08.5) to lead KANSAS to the team championship over Nebraska.
Two world records fell at the Maple Leaf Games in Toronto when WYOMIA TYUS of Tennessee State won the 50-yard dash in 5.6, [1/10] of a second under the old mark, and a Cleveland teen-ager, MADELINE MANNING, took the half-mile in 2:10.2, bettering the old record by [3/10] of a second.
At the All-Eastern Games in Baltimore, Tennessee freshman RICHMOND FLOWERS JR. took the 60-yard high hurdles in 6.9, only [1/10] of a second off the world record, and BILL GAINES, a 17-year-old from Mullica Hill, N.J., missed the world 60-yard-dash record by [1/10] of a second, with a six-second clocking. Seton Hall's HERB GERMANN, who beat Tom Farrell of St. John's at 1,000 yards (2:13.6) the previous night in New York, won the half-mile.
Overseas, indoor world records were broken in separate meets as WENDELL MOTTLEY of Trinidad lowered the 440-yard mark by [3/10] of a second with a 47.3 in a Cosford, England meet, and MICHEL JAZY of France clipped 1.2 seconds off the 1,500-meter record of 3:41.9 (set in Berlin by East Germany's Jurgen May a week earlier) at a meet in Lyon, France.
MILEPOSTS—RESIGNED: BILL REINHART, 69, after the least memorable season (3-18) in his 24 years as head basketball coach of George Washington University. Reinhart, who will remain as baseball coach, compiled a 475-342 basketball record in his 37-year career—13 at Oregon—ranking him fourth among active winning coaches.
TRADED: Philadelphia Phillie slugger and sometime First Baseman DICK STUART, 33, to the New York Mets for three minor-leaguers.
DIED: JAMES D. NORRIS, 59, multimillionaire sports promoter, co-owner of the NHL's Chicago Black Hawks and former head of the defunct International Boxing Club, of a heart ailment, in Chicago.
