Three outstanding black athletic stars strengthen our chances for winning the 1980 track and field Olympics in Moscow.
The newest and youngest is Franklin Jacobs, still only 17, who recently set a world indoor record for the high jump. High jumpers are always very tall, but Jacobs is only 5 feet, 8 inches. He jumped 23 and a half inches above his height to set the new indoor world record.
Jacobs’ style involves a tremendous snap of his body to project his hips over the bar and is incredible to watch. Some predict that he will continue to improve and that, at the Moscow Olympics when he is 20 years old, he will be jumping more than two feet above his height.
Another young star is Houston McTear. Two years ago when he was only 18, he tied the world record for the 100-yard dash. Then he hurt his leg and could not compete in the 1976 Olympics. Recently he set a world record for 60 yards. He then announced he could and would break every running record from 50 to 220 yards.
McTear is one of ten children whose father has been incapacitated because of a severe stroke and unable to support his family. Muhammad Ali heard of McTear’s talent and poverty and now is helping him financially. Many predict that McTear will win both the 100- and 200-meter races in Moscow.
The third brilliant black track star is Edwin Moses who won the 400-meter hurdle race in the 1976 Olympics by 26 feet, setting an Olympic and world record for this exhausting event. Since then he has run even faster and has no serious challenger in the whole world. Moses prays before every race, and his coach is an ordained minister.
Moses is also an excellent science student and graduated from college with high honors. Olympic fans hope that his science career will leave him enough time to run a repeat victory in the Olympics at Moscow.
It is thrilling to see how America’s free, competitive athletic programs have produced such tremendous talent without any government financing or control. Our system of giving every boy and girl a chance to excel in athletics has produced an Olympic champion and record breaker in the difficult decathlon, plus many male winners in swimming and diving events in the last Olympics.
It will be a pity if these great American athletes are cheated out of their victories by the Communists at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Would the Soviets really cheat in order to win more medals? Not unless they get a chance.
The way the Soviets stole the basketball medal at the 1972 Olympics was an international scandal. With the Americans holding a one-point lead and three seconds left to play, the Soviets failed to score. The referees then ordered the clock reset twice to give the Soviets two more chances. They finally managed to sink the “winning” basket on the third try and after two flagrant fouls that should have disqualified the basket even if the basket was not already illegal because of being sunk after the clock had run out. On appeal, three out of the five-man appeals board turned out to be Communists and they voted to give the win to the Soviets.
Basketball was only one of a number of events in which Communist judges arrogantly voted to give Communist athletes top points regardless of their performance. To the Communist world, athletes are instruments of foreign policy and world politics.
In the 1976 Olympics, our boxing team was more worried about Soviet judges than about their opponents. Led by Leon and Michael Spinks, Americans won five gold medals, mostly by knockouts that left the judges no discretion.
It will be difficult to defeat the Russians in their capital city and before so many Iron Curtain judges. But the record performances of Americans such as Jacobs, McTear and Moses make us very optimistic about the 1980 Olympics.
