I have seen many "Best Finishing Kicks including Wottle's and Boit's but how about this for a week of finishing kicks and excitement. The quotations are from "Olympic Track and Field" published by Track and Field News.
On October 14, 1964 when Billy Mills surprised us, surged from behind, and caught his rivals with 50 meters to go to set an Olympic Record and win his gold medal, Bill Easton was jumping up and down in front of me.
The next day "Bob Hayes simply exploded to gain a full meter lead at the 40 meter mark, kept powering and was ahead and never threatened". He won by the 100 meter final by .19 and tied the world record.
On October 18 "with 50 meters to go Bob Schul shot ahead to finish a mud-splattererd but glorious 1st". His last lap was 54.8 and the last 300 was 38.7. It was a very miserable, cold and wet day and the track was a loose mess. I was sitting beside Bob Schul's Mother making the whole race, and especially the surge, even more exciting.
And then on October 21st, in the 4x100 meter relay final, "Hayes was off almost 3 meters behind" and "showed one of the most explosive pick-ups ever seen" crossing the finish in a world record time and .3 ahead of Poland and France with Jamaica and the Soviet Union only another .1 seconds back.
How can I separate those Finishing Kicks?