Give The Girl A Great Big Hand

Back in early June, when she learned that East Germany's peerless sprinter and quarter-miler Marita Koch had cut the 200-meter-dash record to 21.71—a half second faster than any other woman had ever run the distance—Evelyn Ashford said, "It makes me mad. I had always hoped to be the first one to break 22 seconds."

At the time, the 22-year-old UCLA sociology major had run but 22.62, and hers seemed merely fanciful sprinters' words, ego-soothing but not too firmly supported by performance. Then in May she broke the U.S. record in the 100 (11.08, shared by Wyomia Tyus and Brenda Morehead) with an 11.07. She won both sprints in the AAU championships, lowering the U.S. 100 mark to 10.97. In July she repeated the double in the Pan-American games, setting an American record of 22.45 in the 200-meter semifinals.

Thus when she settled into the blocks last Friday night for the 200 meters in the much-heralded World Cup II meet in Montreal's Olympic Stadium, it seemed possible that she would at least make the vaunted Koch run, especially since Ashford had drawn the gently curving eighth lane. Koch, who had shown her form three weeks earlier with a world-record 48.6 for 400 meters, was across the track in the tighter first lane.

At the gun, neither sprinter felt she had started well, though when they came shooting out of the turn into the final 100 meters they were roughly even and far ahead of the field.

Now watch Koch turn it on, thought everyone who had ever seen her sprint. But it was Ashford who turned it on. "I felt almost lackadaisical around the curve," Ashford said afterwards, "then into the stretch I saw Koch over there, and suddenly I meant to run."

As she flew toward the finish, Ashford's past year of hard stamina-and-strength training allowed her to carry her top speed far longer than she ever has. As she leaned at the line, she peeked to her left and then lightly clapped her hands in a disarming gesture of joy and relief, for Koch was a meter behind. As Ashford slowed, she could see her time on the scoreboard clock: 21.83, the second fastest ever. Koch ran 22.02.

Always shy, Ashford quickly fled the stadium to think about the next day's 100 meters against another East German world-record holder, Marlies Göhr, but her effort had ignited the American sprinters. Told of it before his race, 400-meter hurdle master Edwin Moses let his jaw drop. "Amazing," he said, and then proceeded to rip through his event in wondrous fashion, even for Moses. Passing the sixth of the 10 hurdles nearly a second faster than he ever has before, he pulled to a 15-meter lead over West Germany's Harald Schmid, who this year had become the third fastest intermediate hurdler in history with a 47.85.

Then over the last barrier Moses briefly faltered. "I was thinking about Schmid, I guess," he said. "I came up right over that last one and lost two or three tenths, and, worse, I came off not in a position to run; my weight was too far back." Moses eased up before the line, missing his own world record of 47.45 by less than a tenth, with a 47.53. He was disappointed, but grudgingly gave himself credit for a good try under the conditions, notably Montreal's thick and musty air. "I didn't feel tired in the legs, but in the lungs. It's harder to run when you're breathing more water than oxygen."

The other U.S. sprinter fired by Ashford's example was AAU 100-meter champion James Sanford, a converted quarter-miler, who, like almost every other good American sprinter, had been hampered by injury this year. "I have a very delicate groin," he said, rather indelicately. Sanford had most recently strained a muscle there in a race in Berlin seven days earlier and was to have been replaced in the 100 by Harvey Glance. But Sanford had come around enough, in the eyes of U.S. Coach Sam Bell of Indiana University, to regain his spot in the 100. He justified Bell's faith in him by winning the race. "It was a good start," Sanford said. "But, shoot, after 60 meters I was about fourth." Ahead was Cuba's Pan-Am champion Silvio Leonard. "I saw him at about 65," said Sanford, a USC junior. "Shoot, that got me digging in." He left Leonard at 80 meters and won by a yard in 10.17, feeling no pain. "The injury didn't bother me. Once the adrenaline is flowing, shoot, you don't feel anything."

Leonard got a measure of revenge the next day by winning the 200 in 20.14 and running a superb third leg in the 4x100-meter relay to give the Americas team (made up of athletes from the Western Hemisphere outside the U.S.) the win, although things would have been different had U.S. anchor man Steve Riddick not been competing with an injured hamstring encased in wrappings. But why not run the new 100 champion, Sanford, at anchor? "Both Sanford and Riddick were question marks physically," said Bell. "But Riddick has been a good relay man historically, getting us the gold in 1976 and the world record in 1977 and he had worked with the other guys. You simply cannot put a man on the end of a play who has never run with the team." Shoot. The sentiment among the sprinters was that Bell had simply erred. Yet in the final event, the 4x400 relay, Bell stuck with his choice of Tony Darden as anchor man despite rumors that he would replace him—Darden had finished a faltering third in the 400 to Kasheef Hassan of the Sudan and Oregon State—with Edwin Moses. This time Darden held off Schmid (who had run the second-fastest flat 400 this year) to give the U.S. men's squad a three-day total of 119 points, seven better than second-place Europe. The GDR easily won the women's competition over the Soviet Union.