Olympiad

"Athletically, all mankind is divided into three parts--the agile Americans, the hardy Finns, and the rest. And of these, the Americans are the greatest." --thus the World Spirit, musing over the official score-sheet of the eighth Olympic Games where it lay pinned on the Judges' Desk in Colombes Stadium, Paris.

As in ancient days, trials of bodily strength, skill and speed are still universally regarded as the pith and core of the Games. Therefore, though many other events were yet to be contested, America was proclaimed Olympic Champion for 1924 when the track-and-field events were concluded and the points stood: U. S., 255; Finland, 166; Great Britain, 85 1/2; Sweden, 31 1/2; France, 26 1/2.

Third* Day. Monotonous rainfall continued.

Having won the javelin-throw and the 10,000-metre run, the Finns held off until the pentathlon. Then Lehtonen again goaded the Americans and a Hungarian, Sonfay, sprinkled salt in the wound by taking first and second respectively, from R. Legendre. Up went the blue and white ensign on the victory flagpole a third time.

Fourth Day. Next morning three gigantic American shot-putters--Clarence Houser, Glenn Hartranft, Ralph G. Hills--strode determinedly out of the locker-room. Picking up their missiles they catapulted them afar, shook hands with each other, strode back to the locker-room. Down came the Finnish flag, up went America's.

In the afternoon a raven-haired arrow sped 800 yards to the tape. England's flag went up, the Prince of Wales stood on the track congratulating his future subject--D. G. A. Lowe.

At the broad-jumping pit, a dusky form plunked into the sawdust, was lifted out, groaning. De Hart Hubbard, Michigan Negro, had won for America, had made his winning jump despite the excruciating pain of a pulled tendon. Ned Gourdin, Harvard Negro, leaped to second place.

Fifth Day. Before the 200-metre sprint, Head Coach Lawson Robertson spat fire at his fleet charges, enflamed Scholz and Paddock so that they went blazing by Harold Abrahams (their extinguisher in the 100-metre race) and E. H. Liddell (the Scotch parson who had refused to compete in "the century" because it was held on Sunday).

Dan Kinsey whirred through 110 metres of hurdles for another U. S. win.

It was Finland's turn again. First Willie Ritola spurned the pack of 3,000-metre steeplechasers and set his second world's record. Katz, his countryman, followed close.

Sixth Day. The stage was set for two races. Imperturbable Paavo Nurmi (Finland) trotted forth, wiriest of the wiry, hard, slender and supple as a rapier. Carrying a stop watch in his hand to gauge his pace, he first loped 1,500, then 5,000 metres at a speed that broke all his followers' hearts and lungs, save Ritola's, who finished at Nurmi's shoulder in the second race. (Ritola had run 26,000 metres in five days. Nurmi had won twice within two hours.)

U. S. victories that sixth day were the hammer-throwing of Fred Tootell and the pole-vaulting tied by Glen Graham and Lee Barnes, 17-year-old Californian.

Seventh Day. The sun came out blistering. When the 1924 starters dug their holes, the world's record for the 400-metre run stood at 48 1/3 secs. When Liddell, spindly Scotch parson, snapped the tape in the final, it was 47 3/3 secs. Before Liddell settled the matter the record had been broken twice in heats, by Imbach, an unsung Swiss, by Fitch, a fast Chicagoan.

Eighth Day. With a hop, step and jump that covered over 50 feet, Winter of Australia started the eighth-day sensations. That was a world's record, and another came in heats of the 400-metre relay--set by Americans after Britons and Dutchmen had already fractured the standing mark.

Came a call for the 10,000-metre cross-country grind. The sweltering crowd roared greeting to the 39 who pawed the mark, then settled back to wonder how the 39 could possibly endure such searing heat. Out of the Stadium went the runners, to dusty roads, to sunbaked fields. Half an hour later Nurmi's lithe effortless figure came through the Marathon Gate, followed shortly by the indefatigable Ritola and by Earl Johnson (stalwart U. S. Negro), by a sun-stricken, staggering, vomiting, fainting rabble. Only 15 of the 39 finished. Just outside the Stadium many lay prostrate, nigh dead, in a hollow by some tennis courts where the sun was furnace-hot. Nurmi jogged freshly to his shower.

Meanwhile Harold Osborne and Emerson Norton had clinched the Olympic title for the U. S. with top places in the decathlon.

Final Day. Ugo Frigerio, Italian pedestrian, strode in from the 10,000-metre walk with his country's first score. Osborne of America took the decathlon with a world's record point total. Clarence Houser's discus hurtled and ten more points were chalked up for the U. S. Four U. S. quarter-milers broke the world's 1,600-metre relay mark and four U. S. sprinters the 400-metre relay mark--20 more points. Nurmi, Ritola and their Finnish friends were not pressed for the 3,000-metre relay.

A bugle-blast rang out at the Marathon Gate. Into the Stadium loped Stenroos, a little Finnish woodcarver, still perky after 26 miles over hill and dale. He was crowned King of the Games with a laurel wreath, after an Italian, an American, another Finn, a Briton, a Chilean crawled in.

*For First Day and Second Day see TIME, July 14.