article by Nicola Pucci
It is not always possible to combine sporting activity with an adequate course of study, especially when these require such dedication as to compress the possibility of dedicating oneself to something else. In the specific case of Jed Graef, American swimmer from Montclairin New Jersey, where he was born on May 1, 1942, back specialisthere the exception proves the rule.
In fact, Graef experiences his best year during the Olympic seasonin which he won the 200yd backstroke at the championships NCAA e he qualified for the 1964 Tokyo Games with second place in the Trials, swimming the 200 backstroke in 2’12″7, behind Gary Dilley, first in 2’12” clearand ahead of Bob Bennett by a tenth, third in 2’12″8, while surprisingly coming Tom Stock, world record holder with 2’10″9, was eliminated in heat.
The way it was”beheaded“, at the time, the Olympic programme, in Tokyo the 200 backstroke is proposed again – which had not been held since the Paris 1900 edition, when the German Ernst Hoppenberg won – instead of the shorter distance of the 100, thus penalizing Harold Thompson Mann, who in the 4×100 mixed relay swims the distance in 59.6 , the first backstroker in history to dip under a minute, and the qualifiers confirm the role of the two Americans as great favorites for goldwho set the two best times in their respective heats, with the Japanese Shigeo Fukushima, Bennett himself and the Italian Ezio Della Savia leading the other series.
Dilley (2’13″8) and Graef (2’13″7) legitimize their ambitions in projecting final victory by authoritatively winning the two semi-finalswho strengthen Fukushima’s role as third wheel (2’14″1), promote Bennet among the eight finalists with the last available time (2’16″3) and also open a window for the podium to the German Ernst-Joachim Küppers (2’15″4), the Soviet Viktor Mazanov (also credited with a time of 2’15″4), the Australian Peter Reynolds (2’15″6) and the Canadian Ralph Hutton (2’15″8 ), with the other Italian Chiaffredo Rora and Della Savia excluded from the decisive act.
Which takes place on October 13th at Yoyogi National Gymnasiumand in which the undisputed superiority of Graef and Dilley over the rest of the field leads them to expend their best energy for a final that ends in a head-to-head at a world record pacelowered by both, but with Graef touching first in 2’10″3 compared to Dilley’s 2’10″5, with Bennett completing the US podium, albeit clearly behind, in 2’13″1.
The first Princeton student to win a gold medal in swimming, Graef, who achieved no other results in his career, nevertheless deserved the introduction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1988, he then obtained a degree in psychology and became a pioneer in the field of psychology applied to sporthow to say that The Latins weren’t entirely wrong with their motto “A sound mind in a sound body…“.