The Track in the Forest: The Creation of a Legendary 1968 US Olympic Team

The Track in the Forest: The Creation of a Legendary 1968 US Olympic Team

by Bob Burns
The Track in the Forest: The Creation of a Legendary 1968 US Olympic Team

The Track in the Forest: The Creation of a Legendary 1968 US Olympic Team

by Bob Burns

Hardcover

$26.99 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Wednesday, April 3
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

The 1968 US men’s Olympic track and field team won 12 gold medals and set six world records at the Mexico City Games, one of the most dominant performances in Olympic history. The team featured such legends as Tommie Smith, Bob Beamon, Al Oerter, and Dick Fosbury. Fifty years later, the team is mostly remembered for embodying the tumultuous social and racial climate of 1968. The Black Power protest of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the victory stand in Mexico City remains one of the most enduring images of the 1960s. Less known is the role that a 400-meter track carved out of the Eldorado National Forest above Lake Tahoe played in molding that juggernaut. To acclimate US athletes for the 7,300-foot elevation of Mexico City, the US Olympic Committee held a two-month training camp and final Olympic selection meet for the ages at Echo Summit near the California-Nevada border. Never has a sporting event of such consequence been held in such an ethereal setting. On a track in which hundreds of trees were left standing on the infield to minimize the environmental impact, four world records fell—more than have been set at any US meet since (including the 1984 and 1996 Olympics). But the road to Echo Summit was tortuous—the Vietnam War was raging, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, and a group of athletes based out of San Jose State had been threatening to boycott the Mexico City Games to protest racial injustice. Informed by dozens of interviews by longtime sports journalist and track enthusiast Bob Burns, this is the story of how in one of the most divisive years in American history, a California mountaintop provided an incomparable group of Americans shelter from the storm.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780897339377
Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date: 10/02/2018
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 1,115,027
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Bob Burns served as sports editor of the Tahoe Daily Tribune and as a senior writer at the Sacramento Bee. He has also written for the Chicago TribuneGolf Digest, and the San Francisco Examiner. Burns served as communications director for the 2000 US Olympic Track and Field Trials and spearheaded the designation of Echo Summit as a California State Historical Landmark.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

INTO THE GREAT UNKNOWN

Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, the first step toward building a track in the California forest was taken five years earlier in Baden-Baden, a tony West German spa town nestled in the foothills of the Black Forest near the French border.

Baden is German for spa, and the town assumed its curiously hyphenated double name between the world wars to differentiate it from other baths and spas across the European continent. But the locale gained fame centuries before. The Roman emperor Caracalla enjoyed its curative waters in the third century, and it remained a favorite vacation spot for European monarchs and artists through the twentieth century.

The well-heeled members of the IOC made their own pilgrimage in 1963, when they gathered in Baden-Baden to select the host city for the 1968 Olympics — or the XIX Olympics, as the IOC referred to them in a nod to Caracalla and Roman numeration. Joining the IOC in Baden-Baden were representatives of four cities making their final pitches for the 1968 Olympics: Detroit, Buenos Aires, Lyon, and Mexico City.

Detroit, the city that gave rise to the auto industry and the Motown sound, was widely viewed as the favorite. "It looks more and more as if the United States is going to get the games," said Douglas Roby, president of the USOC.

Mexico City's delegation was the first to arrive in Baden-Baden, four days before the final vote. The Mexicans emphasized their rich history, bringing with them a huge statue of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. With Cold War tensions at their height, Mexico's representatives appealed to the bloc of voters loyal to the Soviet Union by stressing their country's neutral political position. When the vote was taken on October 16, 1963, Mexico City prevailed on the first ballot, receiving thirty of the fifty-eight votes cast.

The big news was that for the first time, the Olympics would be held at high altitude. The majority of IOC voters were unconcerned that Mexico City's elevation of 7,350 feet was nearly a mile and a half higher than any previous Summer Olympic site. Mexican officials defused the altitude issue by downplaying the effect the thin air would have on the health of the visiting athletes. They cited numerous studies alleging that a short period of acclimatization would guarantee a level playing field. A member of the Mexican delegation, Dr. Eduardo Hay, tried to turn the altitude question around by attributing Mexico City's refreshing climate to its elevation. The IOC's Detroit-born president, Avery Brundage, defended the selection of Mexico City by saying, "The Olympics belong to all the world, not the part of it at sea level."

With the 1968 Olympics still five years out, concern about Mexico City's altitude was relatively muted in the aftermath of the IOC vote. Sports Illustrated asked in late 1963, "How will the altitude affect the performance of Olympic athletes? In a city where the big nightclubs provide oxygen tanks for exhausted twisters, and in which hangovers seem endless, this is a question worth asking. The answer is that the effect will be more than somewhat but not necessarily drastic."

Even today, there's no surefire way to measure the effect altitude will have on an individual pushing the limits of endurance. But it's not as if scientists and coaches were completely ignorant in the 1960s about what it meant to compete in an oxygen-starved environment, either. Two of the world's most prominent exercise physiologists — Per-Olaf Astrand of Sweden and Bruno Balke of Germany — conducted pioneering research on the effects of altitude in the years immediately following World War II and continued their work through the Mexico City Olympics.

Astrand tested Swedish cross-country skiers at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, forty-three miles north of Echo Summit near Lake Tahoe's north shore. Astrand's studies at Squaw Valley led to the following conclusion: "At higher altitudes pathological ECG [electrocardiography] has been found to occur during heavy muscular work, so also heart failure." After receiving his PhD in physical performance capacity from the University of Berlin in 1945, Balke worked for the US Air Force School of Aviation Medicine in San Antonio. Astrand and Balke mentored Jack Daniels, a two-time US Olympian in the modern pentathlon who conducted studies of his own at Echo Summit.

Growing interest in mountaineering in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries prompted the first studies on altitude's effect on humans engaged in feats of physical endurance. Two years after the first ascent of the world's highest mountain by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay — with the assistance of oxygen kits — Mexico City played host to the 1955 Pan American Games. Billed the "Olympics of the Western Hemisphere," the Pan Am Games included the first major international track and field competition conducted at high altitude. Granted, 7,350 feet is a far cry from Everest's 29,029 feet, but Hillary and Norgay weren't racing the clock, and they weren't world-class runners, either. (Not until 1978 would Everest be climbed without the aid of supplemental oxygen.) Memories of the 1955 Pan American Games provided ammunition for skeptics who said the IOC never should have awarded the Olympics to Mexico City.

News reports from the 1955 Pan American Games noted the number of runners who collapsed following their races, accompanied by dramatic photos of the fallen hooked up to oxygen devices. Guatemalan officials shared their oxygen with other teams, including the United States. Sports Illustrated wrote, "Well-conditioned men from the lowlands dropped like flies. The games became a battle against altitude, and the only effective weapons were tanks of oxygen."

After being taken off the field on a stretcher following his victory in the 400-meter hurdles, Josh Culbreath said, "My throat felt on fire down to my stomach." The distance races were won in slow times, but the experience of US sprinter Lou Jones at the 1955 Pan American Games provided a glimpse of the pros and cons of competing at high altitude. Jones, a twenty-three-year-old army private, won the 400 meters in Mexico City in the world-record time of 45.4 seconds. His clocking shaved a half second off the previous mark, the biggest improvement on the 400-meter record in more than twenty years. Jones collapsed after crossing the finish line and didn't know he had set a world record until he regained consciousness several minutes later. Overall, however, the Pan Am Games were seen as a success and probably helped more than harmed Mexico City's Olympic bid eight years later.

Any criticism of the vote in Baden-Baden was muted as the 1964 Tokyo Olympics drew nearer. Less than two decades after the country had been devastated by firebombing in World War II, the Japanese government and organizers received universal plaudits for their rebuilt city and terrific facilities. Highlights of the Tokyo Olympics included historic wins by US distance runners Bob Schul and Billy Mills in the two longest races on the track. Mills, a twenty-six-year-old first lieutenant in the marines who had grown up an orphan on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, sprinted past the world-record holder from Australia, Ron Clarke, and Mohamed Gammoudi of Tunisia in the final homestretch of the 10,000 meters. (Four years later, Clarke and Gammoudi would be two of the central figures of the Mexico City Games, and Mills would be involved in a controversy at Echo Summit that possibly cost him a spot on what would have been his second Olympic team.)

As the track world caught its breath following the excitement of Tokyo, coaches, administrators, and athletes began turning their attention to Mexico City. The Soviet Union announced in 1965 that it had convened scientists and coaches to study acclimatization and complete a preliminary survey of high-altitude training camps for the athletes it would send to Mexico City in 1968. In March 1966, the USOC cosponsored an "International Symposium on the Effects of Altitude on Physical Performance" in the mile-high city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In his summary of the conference, Balke, the German-born physiologist, said scientists and coaches needed to take the lead in recommending to their country's administrators what specific steps needed to be taken to give their athletes the best chance of success in Mexico City's thin air. The Albuquerque symposium determined that the shortest period of pre-Olympic altitude training would be three weeks, and that the length would possibly be extended to six weeks, in contravention of the IOC's rule limiting the amount of time lowland athletes be allowed to train at altitude camps.

Mexico City organizers held "pre-Olympic" events in 1965, 1966, and 1967, more to allow scientists and physicians to conduct research than to hold full-scale competitions. The 1965 gathering, known unofficially as the "Little Olympics," drew two hundred athletes from seventeen countries. Spectators were amused to see athletes donning special masks and having their blood taken before and after races. "We know that a respiratory thermostat in the body will readjust itself to the altitude in time," said Dr. Daniel Hanley of the US medical squad in Mexico City. "The problem is to find out how long this readjustment will take."

The most closely watched race at the Little Olympics pitted the inimitable Clarke, who had followed his Tokyo disappointment with a spree of record-setting performances, against Gammoudi and Mills. The race was even slower than expected. Gammoudi won in 14 minutes, 40.6 seconds, 1 minute and 15 seconds off Clarke's world record of 13:25.6. Clarke was second, and Mills struggled home fifth in 15:10.2. "There is this awful sensation of breathing deeply and not being able to pull enough air into your lungs," Mills said. "I hate to lose a race, but this was for the doctors."

The US medical team agreed that athletes in the explosive events — the jumps, sprints, and hurdles — could arrive a day or two before competing at altitude and perform without any adverse effects. "You begin to acclimate by first burning off the excess bicarbonate in your system," Dr. Hanley said. "Then you start building more blood cells and hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying factor in red blood cells." Hanley recommended that the USOC assemble a group of physicians and coaches to come up with a workable acclimatization program sometime in 1966. But high-altitude training camps would not fully replicate the stress of Olympic competition, Hanley warned.

The mixed results of the Little Olympics did little to quell the controversy over the selection of Mexico City. One of the most prominent critics was Dr. Roger Bannister, the Englishman who in 1954 became the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. He would go on to become a respected neurologist. Bannister took to the pages of the New York Times to communicate his worries.

"The astonishing choice of Mexico City for the next Olympic games in 1968 has introduced a new program in distance training," Bannister wrote. "At 7,000 feet there is nearly 25 percent less oxygen in the atmosphere, and as we have seen, performance is limited by the transport of oxygen. I do not agree with the remark attributed to the Finnish coach Onin Niakanen that 'there will be those that will die,' but altitude could be the critical additional factor leading to collapse under special circumstances."

Bannister warned that African runners who had lived and trained at altitude their entire lives would have an unfair advantage in Mexico City. Bannister would be proven correct two years later, but the African wave that washed over the Mexico City distance races in 1968 had been building for several years. Holding the Olympics at high altitude unleashed the first torrent.

Abebe Bikila, a palace guard for Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, won the marathon at the 1960 Olympics, running in his bare feet over the cobbled streets of Rome. Bikila successfully defended his Olympic marathon championship in Tokyo, where his compatriot Mamo Wolde finished fourth behind Mills, Gammoudi, and Clarke in the 10,000 meters. A Kenyan by the name of Kipchoge Keino had shown promise in finishing fifth in the Tokyo 5,000 meters. But it wasn't until 1966 that Bannister and others began seeing the runners from the mountains of East Africa as a threat to the world order.

Clarke had taken distance running into uncharted territory in 1965, setting twelve world records in forty-four days. The high point came in Oslo, Norway, where on July 14 Clarke took 35 seconds off his world-record mark in the 10,000 meters by clocking 27:39.4. The fast-improving Keino became the first African runner to set a world record on the track in November 1965, clocking 13:24.2 for 5,000 meters, but Clarke reclaimed the record the following July in a sensational 13:16.6. The 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica, presented Clarke with an opportunity to add a major title to his record collection.

There was plenty of oxygen available in the coastal city of Kingston, but it was of the hot and leaden variety. With its British roots, the Commonwealth Games conducted races at yards rather than meters, so Clarke's first chance for gold came in the 6-mile run on the first day of the track schedule. He talked before the race of wanting to leave something in the tank for his matchup with Keino two days later in the 3-mile. But Naftali Temu, a twenty-two-year-old army private from the hills outside Nairobi, handled Clarke's surging tactics and left the record holder a well-beaten second. Temu ran the last mile in 4:17. Clarke had to settle for a second silver medal in the 3-mile, being outkicked by Keino in the final straight.

"It's hard to run against those blokes," Clarke groaned after the 6-mile. "They train and live up in those high altitudes, and even someone you've never heard of can beat you."

In his Times article, which appeared several weeks after the watershed Commonwealth Games, Bannister argued that living and training at altitude helps runners develop adaptive responses to the lack of oxygen, which translates into greater efficiency.

"Already several countries, with Mexico City particularly in mind, have established permanent training camps at high altitudes," Bannister wrote. "How far have we come from true sport? It would indeed be laughable if it were not so tragic. A pious rule from the International Olympic Committee limiting the length of altitude training to four weeks in the three months preceding the Olympic Games is a tacit admission of the blunder of holding the games at such an altitude and a recognition of the way in which athletes of the future will train."

The Soviet Union built training facilities in Kazakhstan and Armenia, each at sites above 10,000 feet. The French government did the same at Font-Romeu in the Pyrenees, extending an invitation to Clarke to train there free of charge in 1968. Japanese distance runners trained at Mount Norikura. With a sudden sense of urgency, the USOC turned its altitude decision-making over to Oregon coach Bill Bowerman.

Bowerman is best known today for coaching a charismatic runner named Steve Prefontaine and for cofounding the Nike shoe colossus with Phil Knight in the early 1970s. But Bowerman, an Oregon native who fought with the Tenth Mountain Division in World War II, was well established by the mid-1960s as one of the most innovative, successful track coaches in the United States. His teams at the University of Oregon won National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championships in 1962, 1964, and 1965, and Bowerman's advocacy of jogging's health benefits triggered a running boom in Eugene and across the country.

Bowerman's outspokenness and sometimes prickly personality often put him at odds with officials from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and USOC. When collegiate track coaches advocated breaking free of the AAU's draconian control of their sport, Bowerman played a leading role. But time was short, and few questioned his credentials, ingenuity, and energy when it came to the mountainous task of preparing Americans for Mexico City's high altitude.

"We had to learn how to train at altitude and learn it fast," said Hilmer Lodge, chairman of the USOC's track and field committee at the time. "We also had to find a place for our Olympic Trials. If there was somebody better than Bill at interfacing between athletes, coaches, and doctors, he didn't raise his hand."

"I think it was one of those things that no one knew enough about to object to me taking it on," Bowerman said. "The track coaches' association had already resolved to study altitude, so when the Olympic track and field committee met, they said, 'Bowerman, you're the one with the Tenth Mountain Division patch on your briefcase. You're our Olympic high-altitude training coordinator.'"

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "The Track in the Forest"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Bob Burns.
Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Key Figures ix

Map xi

Prologue: Return to the Summit xiii

1 Into the Great Unknown 1

2 Echo Summit 9

3 The Mastermind 24

4 The Resisters 31

5 The Boycott Campaign 39

6 The Innovator 48

7 The Cruelest Month 57

8 Aftershocks 61

9 Bumpy Road to Summit 74

10 Magic Mountain 86

11 Melting Pot 96

12 Take Your Marks 116

13 Out of This World 133

14 Highs and Lows 153

15 Interlude 164

16 Mexico City 172

17 Legacies 196

Epilogue: Distant Echoes 217

Acknowledgments 225

Notes 227

Bibliography 237

Index 241

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews