As the Olympics in Paris begin now, let's take a look at sports around the world 50 years ago.
Dorothy Hamill of Riverside, Conn., wins
her first of three U.S. figure skating championships. She finishes second at
worlds to 17-year-old East German Christine Errath.
Another East German, Jan Hoffmann, wins the men's world title. The U.S. men's champion, for the second of what will be three times, is Gordon McKellen of Lake Placid, N.Y.
Melissa Militano (Skating Club of New York) and
new partner Johnny Johns (Detroit Skating Club) win their first of two U.S. titles in pairs
figure skating. Militano had won a title with her brother (Mark Militano) the
previous year.
At the world figure skating championships, Irina Rodnina
and Aleksandr Zaytsev win their second of six pairs titles together;
this is the sixth of ten for Rodnina. At those same championships, fellow Soviets Lyudmila
Pakhomova and Aleksandr Gorshkov win their fifth consecutive
ice-dancing crown.
In speed skating, Soviet Tatyana Averina sets a
women's world record in the 1500 meters. In the women's sprint race world
championships, Leah Poulos of Northbrook, Ill., is the overall winner.
Eddy Merckx of Belgium wins the Tour de
France for the fifth time, tying the record held by French cyclist Jacques Anquetil. He finishes
the 4098-kilometer route (about 2,546 miles) in 116 hours 16 minutes 58
seconds. Merkcx has also won five Tours of Italy and a Tour of
Spain, giving him a total of eleven victories among those three events, a
record not equaled. Merckx has worn the yellow jersey for a record 111 days,
also not equaled.
Merckx wins the Tour of Italy for the fifth time this year
and joins a club whose membership otherwise consists of only Italians Alfredo Binda
and Alfredo Coppi.
Merckx is also the third three-time winner of the UCI Road
World Championship (held in Montreal this year), the other two being Binda and Belgian Rik van
Steenbergen.
In rugby, Ireland has sole possession of the Five
Nations championship for the first time since 1951. All five nations tied for
the championship in '73.
Romania wins the men's team handball
world championship for the fourth time, a record no one else will reach until
1999.
In Mexico City, Poland wins the men's volleyball
world championship, defeating the Soviet Union in the final, while
reigning Olympic champion Japan finishes third. In Guadalajara, Japan's
women defeat those of the Soviet Union, also reigning Olympic champions,
for the world title.
France wins its seventh freshwater fishing championship.
Toshimitsu Ogata, going by the ring name Kitanoumi,
reaches the highest rank in sumo at the age of 21 years and 61 days. For
decades, he is the youngest yokozuna.
With Ted Hood as skipper, Courageous defeats
the Australian yacht Southern Cross 4-0 for the America's Cup. That boat
will win the Cup again in 1977 with Ted Turner as skipper. In '74, the
two Teds compete in the Southern Ocean Racing Circuit, with Hood's Robin Too
II being the champion yacht of Florida and the Bahamas and Turner's Lightnin'
being second-best.
In an International Olympic Committee meeting, Lake Placid is named the host of the 1980 Winter Games and Moscow host of the 1980
summer games. It's also decided that the best skiers and skaters will spend two
weeks of 1976 not in Denver, but in Innsbruck, Austria.
Mexico City is named to take over as host of the 1975 Pan
American Games, Sao Paulo having withdrawn.
At the world gymnastics championships, the all-around
winners are Japanese Shigeru Kasamatsu (also the winner for floor exercise and
vault) and Soviet Lyudmila Turischeva (also the winner for floor exercise and
balance beam). Between Olympic triumphs, Soviet Olga Korbut wins the vault
at the world championships.
In international swimming, some men's world records and
almost all women's are broken in August. Tim Shaw of Long Beach, Calif., is the one who beats
three of the men's, and fellow Californian Shirley Babashoff of Mission Viejo is solely responsible for two
of the women's. Many distaff records are set by the masculine swimmers from East
Germany, whom physicians think might be on steroids.
At the quadrennial world championships of alpine skiing at
St. Moritz, Switzerland, Gustavo Thoeni of Italy wins the men's slalom
and giant slalom. He reaches nine events won in his Alpine
Skiing World Cup career, which is a record at the time. Fellow Italian Piero Gros
wins the 1973-74 Alpine World Cup title, which Thoeni won in the three seasons before and will win in '75.
Swede Ingemar Stenmark wins his
first of what will be 86 slalom and giant slalom races, and Austrian Franz Klammer
wins his first of what will be 25 World Cup downhill races.
The women's Alpine World Cup winner for the fourth
of five times in a row is Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proell (previously Annemarie Proell). The downhill gold
medalist at St. Moritz, she also wins her eleventh consecutive downhill race in
January. Finishing fourth in downhill is Cindy Nelson of Lutsen, Minn., the downhill winner at the International SDS ladies' ski races.
In professional skiing, Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy is unable to defend his championship because of stomach trouble. Austrian Hugo Nindl wins the title, with fourth place belonging to Hank Kashiwa of Bellingham, Wash., and fifth to Spider Sabich of Snowmass, Colo.
In cricket, Australia wins three matches against New
Zealand and loses one, with two draws between the Antipodean countries.
England sweeps the year's cricket
matches against India but ties in all three of its matches with Pakistan.
The team wins one and loses one against the West Indies, with three
ties.
In bullfighting, Spain's leading matador is Pedro Gutierrez,
"Nino de la Capea," with 84 bullfights, 112 ears, and 15 tails.
Ruling the Mexico City bullring is Curro Rivera, with 12 kills in six
bullfights, but no ears or tails.
Two of the world motorcycling championships are won on
Yamaha bikes: by Sweden's Kent Anderson in 100cc and by Italy's Giacomo
Agostini in 350cc. Agostini equals his 500cc streak by winning his seventh
consecutive 350cc world championship. Walter Villa, a fellow Italian,
wins his first of three straight 250cc crowns.
East Germany wins all but two of
the competitions at the quadrennial world rowing championships, with the Soviet
Union taking pairs with coxswain and the United States eights with
coxswain.
In the two English universities' annual regatta, Oxford
defeats Cambridge by 5 1/2 lengths.
Among the best shooters in the country and the world are Lanny
Bassham of Dallas (or Fort Worth, depending on the source), Margaret T.
Murdock of Topeka, Kan., and Carter, Mont.'s own Maj. Lones Wigger
(yes, that was his name).
Bud Somerville and
his fellow residents of Superior, Wis., win the world curling title. The
Canadian entry loses in the semifinals.
Superior also wins its fourth national curling championship
under Somerville. The skip has won three times in the '60s and will win again
in 1981.
In fencing, Italian Aldo Montano wins the individual
saber at worlds in Grenoble, France, with Paul Apostol of New York
making the semifinals. Viktor Romankov wins at least one of the Soviets'
four titles at Grenoble, as individual foil champion.
In weightlifting, the heavyweight champion of the world for
the fifth time in a row is Soviet Vasily Alekseyev, with 407 3/4 pounds in the
snatch and 529 in the clean and jerk. He sets records for each within the
calendar year: 413 for the snatch, 536 3/4 for the clean and jerk.
One of the four Americans who makes the top eight in any weight class at the world Greco-Roman wrestling championships is Koroly Kancser of Lincoln, Neb., who finishes sixth in the 105 1/2-pound class.
In chess, Viktor Korchnoi begins to seek asylum.
He's been censured by the Soviet Chess Federation for saying bad things about Anatoly
Karpov.
Italian contract bridge players will in time be suspected
of having cheated last year and this year (Italy wins the world championship in
1974).
Twenty-six countries compete in the Stoke Mandeville
International Games, where the U.S.'s wheelchair athletes win 103 medals and
Great Britain's 91.
There are winners and losers. From a
famous university blowing a big rivalry game to an obscure school that never
expects to win, the college football season of '74 is headed your way Aug. 16.
