Alot of you have probably already seen this but I will post it anyway for those of you who have not. You can see the last lap of the 10,000m final. It's got to be one of the greatest upsets of all time.
Alot of you have probably already seen this but I will post it anyway for those of you who have not. You can see the last lap of the 10,000m final. It's got to be one of the greatest upsets of all time.
you missed out 'drug fuelled'
Who is the commentator who goes nuts at the end????
LOOK AT MILLS! LOOK AT MILLS! WOOOOHOOOOO.
Thanks HBK. I remember actually seeing the movie when I was in Jr. High or thereabouts but seeing the actual footage was incredible. He nearly falls down from a veteran push-out tactic. And so many bodies on the track, he dug deep and pulled it out. This is an inspiration to native-americans, runners and americans.
I've never seen this footage...that last 100m is just crazy and whacked and amazing....
The commentator yelling "Look at Mills, Look at Mills" was Dick Bank, who later married Chi Chen, the great Taiwanese hurdler/sprinter/long jumper who was based in the United States.
Mills, of course, set a world record for six miles in either 1965 or 1966 (can't remember which). This Tokyo race turned out not to be a fluke.
OK, OK. For the purpose of discussion on this board, let's assume that all world class performances after, say 1948, are drug aided. Bannister, Landy, Zatopek, Mimoun, Elliott, Pirie, Snell, Clarke, Bikila, etc. - all dopers.
Right now, some guy on this board with a 15:12 5K PR is the legitimate world record holder. ( I've gone under that time but I took some Tylenol for a headache when I was 17 and that probably makes me a cheat.)
Actually, Mills will tell you he doesn't think his win was nearly as big an upset as people make it out to be, despite how much faster he ran than his previous PR. He points to the fact that the year the before the Olympics he was world-ranked in the top ten (eighth, maybe?) at 10,000. He asks how big an upset it can be when the person ranked 8th in the world the previous year wins.
Well, if the 8th ranked heavyweight beat Lewis it would be considered an upset. If the eigth seed in the NBA playoffs wins the championship it's considered an upset.Plus, wasn't Clarke the heavy favorite. I think it was an upset. I see his reasoning, I just don't agree.
It was an upset because he beat the WR holder and did so in a time that 46 seconds better than his previous PR.
and then he dissapeared and never ran anywhere near that level again.
He had some injuries and did come back for the 68 olympics. Ran the fastest 5000 in America at the time but because of racial conflicts between blacks and whites at the time they let a slower black man can't remember the name go instead of him. After this he was so sick of the shit he gave up. Billy has gone through more shit than any runner ever went through and still was able to succeed. You should talk to the man he is incredible. You want motivation talk to Billy Mill for a couple of hours he will move you.
waz wrote:
and then he dissapeared and never ran anywhere near that level again.
"The 1964 10,000 meters produced one of the most electrifying upsets in Olympic history. Pregame predicitons had the race as a tough battle among defending 5000m champion Murray Halberg, defending 10,000m champion Pyotr Bolotnikov, and the main favorite, world record holder Ron Clarke. By the halfway mark, Calrke, following a strategy of surging every other lap, had managed to eliminate from contention all but four runners: Mohamed Gammoudi and Mamo Wolde,..., local favorite Kokichi Tsuburaya, and Billy Mills, who had finished second at the U.S. Olmpic Trials. Tsuburaya was the first to lose contact; then, with two and a half laps to go, Wolde dropped away.
At this point, Ron Clarke appeared assured of victory, since neither Gammoudi nor Mills had ever broken 29 minutes. It was surely just a matter of time before CLarke would break away. They reached the final lap with Clarke and Mills running abreast and Gammoudi right behind. The track was cluttered with stragglers, and the thee leaders were forced to thread their way through the conjestion. It was 'like a dash for a train in a peak-hour,' Clarke would later recall. In the backstretch Clarke found himself faced with a problem. In front of him was a straggler who wouldn't move aside to be passed. To his right was Mills. Clarke tapped Mills a couple of times, but he wouldn't step aside either. So Clarke gave hima shove that sent the American unknown careening to the outside. Seeing his chance, Gammoudi, putting one hand on Clarke and the other on Mills, pushed his way to the front and opened a sudden ten-yard lead. Clarke tgook off after the Tunisian, while Mills appeared to be out of the running. By this time, the audience was already going wild with excitement.
Clarke gradually closed the gap, finally passing Gammoudi at the beginning of the homestretch. But Gammoudi wasn't finished. With a major upset in his grasp, he pulled up to Clarke's shoulder once again. Then came one of those rare moments that sports fans never forget. Billy Mills, fighting his way through still more stragglers, let loose a final sprint that sent Clarke and Gammoudi into a shock and carried him across the finish line with a three-yard victory that left the crowd of 75,000 as exhausted as the runners. Mills was immediately surrounded by Japanese officals, one of whom asked him, 'Who are you?'
During the two weeks that he haod spent in the Olympic Village prior to the opening of the games, not one reporter had asked Billy Mills a single question. Now he was beseiged by journalists from all over the world asking the same question: 'Who is Billy Mills?' Humble and calm (after crying on the victory platform), Mills explained that he was seven sixteenths Sioux Indian, and had been born on Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Orphaned at 12, he had been sent to the Haskell Institute, a school for Native AMericans in Lawrence, Kansas. He had taken up running to become a boxer, but after losing a couple of fights, he had decided to stick to running. After attending the University of Kansas, he had joined the Marines and was now a motor pool officer at Camp Pendleton in California. His winning time in Tokyo was 46 seconds faster than his previous best (Gammoudi had improved his own personal record by 47 seconds). 'I'm flabbergasted,' said Mills. 'I can't believe it. I suppose I was the only person who thought I had a chance.'
In 1965 Billy Mills proved that his OLympic victory was no flucke by bettering Ron Clarke's six-mile world record by six seconds. That smae year, he received an award that was to prove more meaningful than his gold medal--a ring mafe from Black Hills gold that was presented to him by the elders of the Oglala Sioux tribe. They also gave him warrior status, which he didn't have because he was a half-breed, and an Indian name: Loves His Country."
1964 Tokyo 10000m
1. William Mills USA 28:24.4 OR
2. Mohammed Gammoudi TUN 28:24.8
3. Ronald Clarke AUS 28:25.8
4. Mamo Wolde ETH 28:31.8
5. Leonid Ivanov SOV/KYR 28:53.2
6. Kokichi Tsubaraya JPN 28:59.4
7. Murray Halberg NZE 29:10.8
8. Anthony Cook AUS 29:25.8
--"Sports Illustrated presents The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics 1996 Edition" by David Wallechinsky