fastest man in the world

Bullet Bob Hayes – Fastest Man in Tokyo (and the World) Part 2: 100-Meter Drama and Domination

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Bob Hayes, from the book The Spectacle of Tokyo Olympics

It’s the Olympics. You’re a football player with blazing speed, and you’re prepping to win gold, to be crowned the fastest man in the world.

But on October 15, 1964, in the midst of the Tokyo Olympics, Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power by Soviet leadership. American journalists, hoping to get a great quote from the biggest name in Tokyo, ask Bob Hayes, “What do you think?”

As he wrote in his autobiography, Run, Bullet, Run, “What did a twenty-one-year-old kid who was trying to win a gold medal at the Olympics know about what was happening in the Soviet Union? I mean, if the experts in the CIA couldn’t see Khrushchev’s downfall coming, what was I supposed to know about it?”

Hayes hit the nail on the head with his response to the press: “I’m just going to answer your question once. I’m here to win a gold medal and not to talk about politics.”

Hayes, like the best high performance athletes, was focused on his mission.  Gold in the 100-meter finals. Gold in the 4×100-meter relays.

And yet….there’s always something.

It is hours before the finals of the 100-meter dash on October 15. Hayes is sitting in his room in the Olympic Village with the hopes of keeping himself calm. His roommate, long jumper Ralph Boston, is lying on his bed, keeping to himself.

Then walks in Joe Frazier, boxing heavyweight contender, who bounced into Hayes’ room a “bundle of nerves, but especially that day because he had an important boxing match coming up. He started throwing punches at my head. I asked him to leave me alone, so he went over to Ralph’s bed and threw jabs up to within an inch or two of Ralph’s head.”

Needless, to say, the eventual gold medal and heavyweight champion of the world was a distraction. Not getting the reaction he wanted, Frazier began rummaging Hayes’ bag for gum, stuck it in his mouth, and left.

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Receiving his gold medal for the 100 -meters finals, from the book, The Spectacle of Tokyo Olympics

Flash forward to the National Stadium and the fastest runners in the world are prepping for the 100-meter finals. Hayes gets to the track and opens his bag to pull out his shoes. To his surprise, he finds only his right shoe. He dumps the contents of his bag and can’t find the left shoe. “The biggest race of my life, and I was missing a shoe.”

But who walks by but middle distance runner and teammate, Tom Farrell. Hayes has relatively small feet and is hoping against hope that Farrell happens to have the same size shoes – size eight. So when Farrell replied to Hayes’ sudden and unusual question, he said “Well, I wear size eight.”

Not only did Farrell wear the same size shoe, he also wore the Adidas 100 shoe that Hayes’ did. Now, properly attired for battle, Hayes lined up.

And then he learned that Hayes was placed in lane 1. Lane 1 is the innermost lane on the track, and the cinder track had been chopped up by some three dozen race walkers for three circles before heading out on the rest of their 20K journey. Don’t the fastest runners in the semis get the choice middle lanes? Not at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, where sprinters were assigned lanes randomly.

So Hayes set up his blocks. His biggest rivals, Cuban Enrique Figuerola and Canadian Harry Jerome were in the less chewed up lanes 3 and 5. As he got set at his mark, the muscular Hayes was a tightly wound coil ready to spring, ticked off about his lane placement. “I was totally intense, the more so because iw as angry about having to run in the inside lane. Finally, I picked out a spot straight ahead of me down the track and vowed that I was going to get there before anyone else did.”

He did. Convincingly. Watch the video from the 3’ 55” mark to watch the black and white footage of the race. The angle is long enough to show the entire field. And you can see Hayes dominating the field from start to finish. Fastest Man in the World. By far.

 

Gold medal in hand, Hayes returned to his room. Hidden under his bedspread was the missing shoe. The next time he saw Joe Frazier, he shouted “’Don’t you ever go in my bag again!’ That was about the only time I ever saw Joe Frazier apologetic.”

Bob Hayes – fastest man in the world – bringing new meaning to the phrase “if the shoe fits, wear it.”

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Rio’s Too Close to Call: 100-Meter Sprint, Men’s and Women’s

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Clockwise: Schippers, Thompson, Gardner, Fraser-Pryce

The crowns of the fastest men and women in the world reside in the Caribbean island of Jamaica. Both Sherry-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Usain Bolt have won gold in the premier track and field event, the 100-meter dash, at the past two Olympics in London and Beijing.

For Fraser-Pryce, winning gold in the 100-meters at the Rio Olympics will not be easy. Her fastest time in 2016 or 10.93 merits tenth best for the season, a few big competitors with faster times.

Dafne Schippers, 24, won gold in the 200 meters at the world championships, and silver in the 100 meters last year. But in quick succession, the Dutch sprinter has won gold in the 100 meters at the European Championships in Amsterdam as well as the Diamond League championship in Monaco on July 15. However, two huge rivals did not compete at that event, Elaine Thompson, 24, of Jamaica and English Gardner, 24, of the USA, owners of the two fastest times in 2016.

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Gatlin and Bolt

As for the men, the chief competitor to Usain Bolt is American Justin Gatlin, the much maligned sprinter who won gold in the 2004 Athens Games, but missed the Beijing Olympics in 2008 while serving his second ban for use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. He returned to the tour in time to place third at the London Games, and has recently won the US Olympic Trials in the 100-meters, sending him to Rio as the oldest sprinter ever to make a US team.

In 2016, Gatlin holds the fastest time in the 100 meters at 9.80. Usain Bolt has been cautious, holding himself back from competing, particularly as he had recently suffered a hamstring injury. But his fastest time this year is 9.88, and clearly Bolt rises to the occasion. Just recently Bolt demonstrated that the injury is not an issue by dominating in the 200-meters championships at the London Anniversary Games on July 22.

Will Jamaicans Bolt and Fraser-Pryce repeat as the first three-time gold medalists in the 100-meters, or will time catch up with them?

Can’t wait to find out.

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Bob Hayes Borrows Shoes and Barges into Olympic History

Bob Hayes, from the book "Tokyo Olympiad 1964_Kyodo News Service"
Bob Hayes, from the book “Tokyo Olympiad 1964_Kyodo News Service”

Yeah, you’re the fastest man in the world. But you’re running in the first lane, the most beat up sodden lane after two weeks of competition, and you can’t find your shoes.

This was the predicament that “Bullet” Bob Hayes found himself in, according to Bob Schul, in his book, “In the Long Run”.

Just in front of me was Bob Hayes, who seemed to be searching for something. “Bob, what are you doing?” I questioned. “Aren’t you supposed to run the next race?”

“Bob, I can’t find my shoes!” he said in a very worried tone.

“Can’t find your shoes! Where did you leave them?”

“Here, right here!” he answered frantically. “Every day I leave them under this bench while I warm up.” Then he stopped and turned to me. “I know where they are! They’re under my bed at the village! I forgot to bring them!” He looked at my spikes and I knew what he was thinking.

“I wear size 10 and a half, Bob,” I said.

“Too big! What am I going to do?” Just then Tom Farrell entered the area. Tom was in the in_the_long_run800 final, which followed the 100 meters. It was apparent what Bob was thinking, and he ran over to Tom and asked what size spikes he word. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but within seconds Bob had Tom’s shoes and was running for the check-in room.

As I waited for the bus outside the stadium I heard the final results of the 100 meters. Bob Hayes had set an Olympic record in winning the gold medal. “Way to go, Bob,” I said out loud.

Bob Hayes set a world record running the 100 meters in 10 seconds flat.

Bob Schul had already won gold in the 5,000 meters, the only American Olympic champion in that event.

Tom Farrell would find glory four years later in 1968, wining bronze in the 800 meter race. He graduated from Archbishop Molloy High School, which is a 5-minute walk from where I grew up in Queens. I spent many a summer day playing stickball in that high school parking lot.

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