A roundup of the sports information of the week
BOATING—When all the mathematics were done, Huey A. Long's veteran 57-foot campaigner ONDINE was declared overall winner of the first 3,400-mile transatlantic race from Bermuda to Copenhagen. First over the line at the Skaw 31 hours before Ondine was Robert Johnson's 72-foot ketch, Ticonderoga, which made the passage in just one hour short of 16 days. But frustrating calms held back the tail end of the fleet, so it was a full 23 days seven hours before the last of the 36 boats, Horace Beck's 38-foot sloop, China Bird, finished the race. Carl Hovgard's Circe, Homer Denius' Maredea and the Cal-40 Vamp X won second, third and fourth spots overall, while Richard Nye's 53½-foot Carina, Vamp X, and Tyge Rothe's 40-foot yawl, Kirsten, each took honors in their classes.
Now living in The Netherlands, but sailing for an American yacht club, EDWARD R. STETTINIUS, son of the late U.S. Secretary of State, skippered his new ocean racer Tina to two firsts and a fifth to capture international racing's recently resuscitated One-Ton Cup for the U.S. Ted Hood's Robin, out of Marblehead, Mass., was runner-up.
Ernest Fay of Houston won his second straight (the fifth of his career) Scandinavian Gold Cup when he sailed his 5.5-meter Pride to three out of five first-place finishes off Norway.
Flying buffalo, a 35-foot Class C sloop owned and skippered by Maury Declerq of Detroit, took overall honors in the Port Huron-to-Mackinac race with a corrected time of 26:44.55. ROMAHAJO III, Harvey Nedeau's 42-foot sloop from Muskegon, Mich., placed second in the overall standings and first in Class A, while Gypsy, the 32-footer out of Milwaukee that was the first over the finish line, placed third overall and second in Class A.
GOLF—"This course makes me play better," said 28-year-old Californian AL GEIBERGER as he proved the point with an even-par 280 to win the PGA championship in Akron, Ohio by four strokes over runner-up Dudley Wysong, 27, of Texas (page 16).
HARNESS RACING—Stanley Dancer drove NOBLE VICTORY ($5.00) to a 3¾-length victory over favored Speedy Rodney in the $25,000 Su Mac Lad Invitational Trot at Brandywine in Wilmington, Del., breaking the mile track record set in 1965 by Speedy Scot with a 2:00 2/5.
Romeo Hanover ($2.20), the 3-year-old who got one leg up on pacing's Triple Crown with a first in the Cane Futurity in May, scored his eighth straight win as he beat True Duane by half a length in Monticello's Henry Thomas Pace. A few days earlier at Monticello, Romeo's full brother, ROMULUS HANOVER, a 2-year-old chestnut driven by Billy Haughton, won over King Omaha by four lengths to gain his sixth victory in nine starts.
HORSE RACING—Ogden Phipps's BUCKPASSER ($3.20), ridden by Braulio Baeza, caught front-running Buffle in the stretch and won Aqueduct's $107,100 Brooklyn Handicap by a head (page 40).
Lady Pitt ($5.40), owned by Golden Triangle Stable and ridden by Walter Blum, strengthened her bid for 3-year-old filly honors with an easy five-length victory over Help on Way in the $63,092 Delaware Oaks at Stanton, Del.
Forgotten dreams ($23.20), owned by Industrialist Louis Wolfson, won the first major stakes race of the year for 2-year-olds when he beat favored Tumble Wind, in the $146,350 Hollywood Juvenile Championship at Hollywood Park. The upset 3½-length victory over a favorite who had run unbeaten in his last three starts was worth $101,350.
MOTOR SPORTS—Before the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, The Netherlands, JACK BRABHAM, the 40-year-old Australian who has lately been called the "grand old man of auto racing," put on a false beard, leaned on a cane and limped to his Brabham-Repco to a third straight victory, virtually clinched this year's world driving title.
"To encourage the return of stock-car racing to a more independent status," the Chrysler Corporation announced that its racing team would complete its 1966 contracts, after which the company would cease all activity in stock-car racing. Company spokesmen urged Ford to drop its stock-car program also. Said Chrysler's top driver Richard Petty, "It's not going to make too much difference, at least not until Ford makes its policy declaration." Ford, which pulled its team out of stock-car competition in April after NASCAR ruled that cars using a new Ford overhead cam engine had to carry additional weight, is to make its decision sometime this week.
SHOOTING—The UNITED STATES gunned down the Russians for the first time in 12 years when it took 17 gold medals, six silver and six bronze to finish first at the world championships in Wiesbaden, Germany. The U.S.S.R. finished second with 10 gold, 14 silver and 10 bronze medals.
SWIMMING—LYNN VIDALl, a 14-year-old from San Francisco, recovered from an attack of the German measles just in time to break the 200-meter individual-medley record at the Far Western championships in Los Altos, Calif. Lynn swam a combination of freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly to cover the distance in 2:29 and better the old mark of 2:29.9, held by Olympian Donna de Varona. The medley, previously only an American event, will be an official event in the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968.
TRACK & FIELD—Two days before his 26th birthday, JOHN PENNEL, first man to vault 17 feet, set a new world record when he cleared 17 feet 6¼ inches at the Los Angeles Times International Games. Pennel's vault bettered by ¾ inch the pending mark set in May by his roommate, Bob Seagren. The next day JIM RYUN (page 20) ran the 880-yard in an effortless, for him, 1:46.2.
The 1,600-meter relay team of BOB FREY, LEE EVANS, TOMMIE SMITH and THERON LEWIS ran a 2:59.6 to cut 1.1 seconds off the world record set by the U.S. in the 1964 Olympics. Smith, who had just returned to competition after a leg injury, won the 200 meters in 20.5 before the relay began. Still warm from the effort, he raced his 400-meter leg in the relay in an amazing 43.8.
MILEPOSTS—RESIGNED: AL DAVIS, 37, former head coach of the Oakland Raiders, as commissioner of the AFL. Davis, who succeeded Joe Foss in April, did not disclose his plans, but will continue to serve the league in an advisory capacity. Replacing him (with the title of president, because of the recent merger of the NFL-AFL) will be MILT WOODARD, 55, assistant commissioner under Foss.
DIED: Californian TONY LEMA, 32, an obscure touring golf pro for seven years until 1964 when he gained national prominence by winning the Crosby, the Thunderbird, the Buick Open, the British Open and the World Series of Golf; with his wife, Betty, 30, in the crash of a private plane on a golf course near Lansing, Ill. (page 10). Also killed in the accident were the plane's pilot, Mrs. Doris Mullen of Joliet. Ill., and copilot, Dr. George Bard of Kankakee, Ill. Lema, who got the nickname "Champagne Tony" from his custom of treating the press when he won a tournament, was killed en route from the PGA in Akron to a tournament in Crete, Ill.
DIED: Controversial Sportscaster CLURE MOSHER, 44, who built his reputation as an outspoken, often sarcastic interviewer of sports celebrities at WCKT-TV in Miami before moving north to New York two years ago as sports director of WOR-TV, of natural causes, in his hotel room in New York.
DIED: In an automobile accident in Melbourne, Australia, FRANK LIVINGSTON, 66, one of two millionaire Australian yachting brothers (SI, March 16, 1964) whose eagerness to get into the America's Cup competition was such that they helped finance the building of one of the two English boats (Kurrewa V) competing for the right to challenge for the cup in 1964.
