Article by John Manenti
Nowadays, with the expansion of the Swimming program – which at the World Championships can count on further tests on the 50m backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly – it no longer causes an excessive sensation in a single edition of the Olympics an athlete can win four or more medals, up to the absolute record of Michael Phelps with his 8 Golds conquered in 2008 in Beijing, while in the women’s field such primacy is held by the East German Kristin Otto, capable of climbing on 6 occasions on the top step of the podium at the 1988 Seoul Games …
Circumstance, vice versa, absolutely unimaginable until the Tokyo 1964 edition, the last one with a reduced programme – which includes 7 individual competitions and three relays in the men’s sector and 6 individual competitions and 2 relays in the women’s sector – so much so that the feat accomplished by the American made headlines Donald “Don” Schollander, winner of the Gold Medal on the 100m and 400sl, as well as the 4×100 and 4x200sl relaysleaving teammate Steve Clark the honor of the last freestyle leg of the 4×100 medley relay.
And to think that Schollander had also presented himself in the Japanese capital as a holder of the world record on the m.200sl, a race however not included in the Olympic program at the timea record he improved six more times before the 1968 Mexico City Games where, ironically, he was defeated in the Final by the Australian Mike Wenden, consoling himself with his fifth personal Gold as a member of the 4x200m freestyle relay …
In Tokyo, however, there is one of her compatriots who almost manages to match Schollander’s feat, seeing the “Poker d’Oro” only because forced to rival, and therefore surrender, with an absolute “legend” of International Swimming, that is to say the now 27-year-old Australian Dawn Fraser, at her third participation in the Games and already with 6 laurels (3 Golds and as many silvers …) in their Palmarès between individual races and relays.
It’s almost tenderness, in front of such a “sacred monster”, the face of little more than a child of the not yet 16-year-old American Sharon Stouder, as she was born on November 9, 1948 in Altadena, a city of just over 40,000 inhabitants in California, which had stood out the previous year by earning the selection for the USA Team at the 1963 Pan American Games held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, only as a member of the two 4×100sl and 4×100 medley relays (inserted in this second case in the butterfly fraction …), both ended with a large advantage over Canada …
Il “breakthrough”, the 15-year-old Sharon does it on the occasion of the “Olympic Trials” which are held in New York from August 29 to September 3, 1964 – this as the Japanese Olympics take place from the 10 to the 24 of the following month of October – in which it imposes both in Final of the 100m freestyle with a time of 1’00″3 and of the 100m butterfly swim in 1’06″7 ahead of the 17-year-old Kathleen Ellis in both cases which had prevailed the previous year in the butterfly race at the aforementioned Pan American Games.
As per consolidated practice, in the system of the “Yoyogi National Gymnasium” of Tokyo, to open the Olympic program is the m.100sl, which includes heats in the morning and semi-finals in the afternoon of 12 October 1964 and the Final the day afterwith the predictions, in spite of the no longer very young age – and the fact of having returned from six weeks of inactivity due to a fractured vertebra – still conveyed on the Fraser, the only one to have so far broken the “clear 1” barrier and then improved her limit bringing it to 58″9 at the Australian Championships at the end of February 1964 in Sydney, also valid as Olympic Trials …
World record holder who confirms this prediction since the morning batteries, doing recording clearly the best time in 1’00”6while Stouder won the sixth and final series in 1’02″3, but both Ellis did better than her with her 1’01″5 with which she prevailed in the first and also the other 15-year-old Canadian Marion Lay who he finishes in 1’02”1 behind Fraser.
Australian who reaffirms her role as favorite in the semifinals played in the late afternoon, stopping the clocks on the umpteenth “under 60” net”, with the 59”9 with which he won the first serieswhile Stouder demonstrates that she can at least aspire to the role of first challenger as well as leader of Team USA, imposing herself in 1’01″4 in the second, with Ellis only third in 1’02″5, also preceded by the Dutch Erica Terpstra and also Lay confirms her podium ambitions finishing again behind Fraser with a time of 1’02”2 …
Spotlights therefore on the central lanes when the eight finalists are positioned on the starting blocks for the Final scheduled for 20:00 local time on 13 October 1964 and which sees the Olympic champion in charge determined to close the practice from the very first strokes, perhaps not expecting that the 15-year-old American was able to keep up with her to the point that, after tacking at a slight disadvantage, she catches up with Fraser halfway through the return tank only to then give in to the effort made, while the Australian uses up her remaining energy to going to seize his third consecutive Gold (still unequaled feat…) improving her Olympic record to 59”5, but also Stouder “makes history”, in the sense that the 59”9 in which she stops the clocks make her the second freestyle stylist of any era to have dropped below 1′, with the podium completed by Ellis who finishes in 1’00”8.
A debut at the Games such as to galvanize the young Sharon, who gets hers two days later revenge by swimming the first fraction of the 4x100sl relay so as to provide one’s contribution (although he swam in 1’01”2 …) at United States Gold Medal with a world record to clearly precede (4’03″8 to 4’06″9) the Australian quartet, despite a last stage launched by Fraser timed in 58″6 (!!) …
An excuse for Stouder’s good but not exceptional time is the fact that, three hours before the Final, she had the semifinals of the 100m butterfly, a test that sees her again forced to face the world record holder, in this case the 17-year-old Dutch Ada KokEuropean Champion 1962 in Leipzig and who at the beginning of September 1963 had taken away from Ellis the absolute record swimming the distance in 1’06″1 to then improve this time by 1″ exactly at the end of May 1964 a Blackpool, in Inghilterra.
Kok lying “surrounded” by the American trio made up, as well as by Ellis and Stouder, also by the 17-year-old Donna de Varona, athletes who in batteries of October 14 compete to improve the Olympic recordfirst with the 1’07″8 of Ellis, to which de Varona responds by swimming in 1’07″5 to then touch the youngest of the group to have the last word in 1’07″0 before the direct confrontation with the Dutchman, both entered in the first of the two semi-finals …
Encourage each other to give their best, the two opponents with spare each other and the outcome is confirmed by the lap time which reads 1’05″6 for Stouder and 1’05″9 for Kok, both well below the previous limit and not far from the absolute primacy of the Dutch, while the qualification for the Final also by the other two Americans seems to relegate them to the role of supporting actors given their respective times of 1’07″2 and 1’07″7 with which they conclude the second semifinal.
Appointment therefore for 19:35 local time for a challenge that “smells of supremacy” and that the American does not intend to miss, setting sail from the very first strokes with such an incessant action that the world record holder is unable to reply, being able only to defend the silver by touching in 1’05″6 to then see from the electronic scoreboard that the Stouder, in addition to the Gold Medal, also took away her record by falling below 1’05” net, 1’04″7 to be precisewhile as on the freestyle distance, the podium is completed by Ellis in 1’06”0 …
Only the 4×100 medley relay remains which, on the basis of the outcome of the two aforementioned trials, sees the new world record holder inserted in the butterfly fraction and Ellis concluding in freestyle, with the Kok to take a “partial revenge” recording a better time (1’05”0 to 1’06”1) than Stouderwhich in any case does not prevent the US quartet (also made up of Cathy Ferguson on backstroke and Cynthia Goyette on breaststroke …) from making their the Gold Medal with annexed world record of 4’33”9with Holland silver in 4’37”0 and the Soviet Union bronze.
It’s just a pity that, at the time, without the sponsors existing today, these challenges must cease given that the American – who in Tokyo could have increased her loot, given that she was world record holder on the 200m butterfly, a race not contemplated in the Olympic Programme – abandons the business at the end of the year to devote himself to the Studio, so that the enthusiasts probably lack a “showdown” four years later at the Mexico City Games where Kok – after having confirmed the Continental title at the European Championships in Utrecht 1966 and regaining possession of the world record by swimming in 1’04″5 in mid-August 1965 in Budapest and do the same also on the 200m butterfly – she concludes fourth in the Final of the 100m butterfly, but gets the “Olympic glory” imposing itself on the double distance …
How to say that, in the end, “there’s Gloria for everyone…” …