- Publish date:
A roundup of the week July 4-10
BOATING—BILL STERETT JR., driving his Pride of Pay 'N Pak at 109.090 mph, won the President's Cup Regatta for unlimited hydroplanes on the Potomac River in Washington (page 20).
BOXING—BEN VILLAFLOR, world junior lightweight champion, scored a TKO over Carlos Fernandez of Mexico in the third round of a nontitle fight in Honolulu.
FENCING—RUTH WHITE, 20, became the first woman to win two national fencing titles before her 21st birthday when she took the foil crown in Waltham, Mass. ALEX ORBAN won the men's saber title for the fourth consecutive time, defending champion JAMES MELCHER took the epee and BURT FREEMAN, a 1st lieutenant in the Marine Corps, captured the foil. All made the Olympic team. Other qualifiers included the 1972 NCAA foil titlist, Tyrone Simmons, and former Olympians Harriet King, Steve Netburn (épée) and Jack Keane and Al Morales (saber).
GOLF—GAY BREWER gained his first tour victory since the 1967 Masters when he fired a final-round 70 for a 275 total and a one-stroke win in the $150,000 Canadian Open at Cherry Hill in Ridgeway, Ontario.
Dick Storey, a 64-year-old Scottish businessman, shot a final-round 76 for a 293 total to capture the International Seniors Amateur Golf Championship at Gleneagles, Scotland.
HORSE RACING—KEY TO THE MINT ($12.40) tied the track record of 1:54[4/5] for 1[3/16] miles to win the $118,100 Brooklyn Handicap at Aqueduct. One of only two 3-year-olds in the field—the other, Freetex, finished last—he outdistanced his nearest rival, Autobiography, by two lengths.
Favored MR. JET MOORE ($3.80) sped 400 yards through the rain in 19.70 seconds to win the $205,200 Rainbow Derby at Ruidoso Downs, N. Mex. by 1½ lengths over Alamitos Angel.
Brigadier Gerard remained unbeaten, taking his 14th straight race and a winner's purse of $79,820 when he scored a one-length victory over Gold Rod in the $117,820 Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park, England.
Bill Shoemaker, who had not won in his last 18 stakes races, guided BUZKASHI ($19.60) to a 2½-length triumph over Single Agent in the $83,300 American Handicap at Hollywood Park. Later in the week at the same track he rode HILL CIRCUS ($7.60) to a 10-length victory over Manta in the $64,600 Beverly Hills Handicap. Typecast, who carried top weight of 127, 12 pounds more than the winner, finished third.
MOTOR SPORTS—GEORGE FOLLMER, driving injured Mark Donohue's L&M Porsche-Audi, averaged 113.9 mph to win Road Atlanta, the second race in the SCCA Canadian-American Challenge Cup series, at Gainesville, Ga. (page 58).
David Pearson, a three-time winner of the NASCAR Grand National Championship, sped into the lead with five laps to go and held on to win the first prize of $15,150 in the Firecracker 400 at Daytona Beach, Fla. Pearson's Purolator Mercury, which averaged 160.821 mph, crossed the finish line less than one car length ahead of Richard Petty's STP Dodge.
SAILING—Frenchman ALAIN COLAS brought Pen Duick IV into Newport, R.I. after 20 days, 12 hours and 15 minutes en route from Plymouth, England to win the singlehanded Trans-Atlantic yacht race. His time was five days, eight hours faster than Geoffrey Williams' 1968 record (page 18).
Pen Duick III, a 57-foot sloop from France, was declared the handicap winner of the Trans-Pacific-Tahiti yacht race. The 73-foot ketch Greybeard was the first to complete the 3,571 miles from Los Angeles to Papeete.
In Olympic Trials on Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts, ED BENNETT of San Francisco gained an Olympic berth in the Finn class and New York's GLEN FOSTER qualified in the Tempest class. BUD MELGES of Zenda, Wis., with his crew of Billie Allen and Bill Bentsen, won the Soling trials on San Francisco Bay.
TENNIS—STAN SMITH and BILLIE JEAN KING gave the United States its first sweep of Wimbledon since Tony Trabert and Louise Brough accomplished the feat in 1955 (page 22).
TRACK & FIELD—JIM RYUN, running a 51.5 final quarter, earned a berth for his third Olympics with a 3:41.5 as he won the 1,500 meters at the men's trials in Eugene, Ore. WAYNE COLLETT took first in the 400 meters in 44.1 while STEVE PREFONTAINE won his trip to Munich with a U.S. record 13:22.8 in the 5,000 meters (page 12).
Madeline Manning Jackson raced to victory in the 800-meter run at the Olympic trials in Frederick, Md. but placed fourth in the 400 meters as KATHY HAMMOND sped to an American record of 51.8. Other qualifiers who set American records were PATTY JOHNSON with a 12.9 in the 100-meter hurdles and FRANCIE LARRIEU with a 4:10.4 in the 1,500 meters (page 16).
Janis Lusis of the U.S.S.R. bettered Jorma Kinnunen's world javelin record of 304'1" with a throw of 307'9", and Sweden's RICKY BRUCH hurled the discus 224'5" to equal American Jay Silvester's four-year-old world record at an international meet in Stockholm.
The EAST GERMAN women's 1,600-meter relay team broke its own world record by .5 with a 3:28.8 clocking at an East Germany-France meet in Paris.
MILEPOSTS—HIRED: As coach of the ABA's Memphis franchise, BOB BASS, 43, former coach of the defunct ABA Floridians.
HIRED: MARCEL PRONOVOST, 42, a defense-man for Detroit and Toronto of the NHL for 21 years (1949-70), as coach of the World Hockey Association Chicago Cougars. Pronovost, player-coach of Toronto's Tulsa farm club in the Central Hockey League for the past three years, had been passed over for the Maple Leaf job when John McLellan was taken ill and replaced last season.
FIRED: As manager of the Minnesota Twins, BILL RIGNEY, 53, after his team had fallen from an early season lead to third place, 9½ games out. Rigney became the third Twin manager since 1961 to be fired in midseason by club president Calvin Griffith. He led Minnesota to a divisional championship in 1970, but the team slumped to fifth place last year. Frank Quilici, 33, a coach and former Twin utility infielder with a five-year major league average of .214, succeeds Rigney.
RESCHEDULED: The SCHAEFER 500, postponed in the wake of Hurricane Agnes, for July 29 at the Pocono International Raceway.
RETIRED: As coach of the Mt. Washington Club lacrosse team, BEN GOERTEMILLER, 38, after 11 years in which he compiled a 101-21 record including five national club championships.
DIED: ZORA FOLLEY, 40; of a head injury suffered in a fall at a motel swimming pool; in Tucson. Rated the top heavyweight contender during part of Floyd Patterson's reign, Folley never earned a shot at the title until March 22, 1967 when he was knocked out in the seventh round of Muhammad Ali's last defense before being stripped of his crown.
DIED: GEORGE SCHUSTER, 99, winner of the "longest auto race," from New York across America and Siberia to Paris in 1908; in Springville, N.Y. Schuster drove his 70-horsepower Thomas Flyer over the 13,000 miles, most of it roadless, in 169 days to defeat three Frenchmen, a German and an Italian.
