Word: oldfields
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...hope may rest too much on that one arm. Because Schmidt is weak on technique and her approach run is slow, she has to compensate with her fast arm movement and astonishing power. Pro Shotputter Brian Oldfield calls her "all arm. If she gets some speed, she'll hit 240 ft." No devotee of training-she chain-smokes Tareyton 100s and quaffs beer with true zeal-Schmidt will check in at Montreal at 6 ft. 1 in. and 178 Ibs., some 10 Ibs. heavier than she would like -the excess due more to weightlifting than beverages. Schmidt also will...
...performances have been spotty, purses have been paltry, and the tour's personalities have shown little of the crowd-pulling pizazz so important to commercial survival. The I.T.A. still has problems, but its struggle to succeed has been made easier by a pair of iconoclastic performers: Shotputter Brian Oldfield and Pole Vaulter Steve Smith. Both world-record holders, they are also flaky, free spirits who have just what it takes to make the tour more successful...
Behemoth Brian, 30, is already looking beyond the track. "Why can't I play fullback?" asks the 6-ft. 5-in. 270-pounder. "I'm bigger and faster than Larry Csonka." He is not kidding. Cat quick, Oldfield regularly defeats the pro tour's women sprinters in a special 30-yd. dash. Last year he turned down a $10,000 bonus offer to play for the New York Stars in the World Football League, but this summer he may try to talk the Miami Dolphins into giving him a shot at Csonka's vacated slot...
...within the confines of the shot-putter's 7-ft. circle that Oldfield really exercises his power. At an I.T.A. meet last month in El Paso, Oldfield whirled and hurled the 16-lb. shot farther than anyone else in history. Spinning around with a discus thrower's 1½ turn, which no other shotputter has mastered, Oldfield fired the steel ball 75 ft., an astonishing 3½ ft. past the existing world outdoor mark. Oldfield's effort will not be recognized as a record by amateur governing bodies because of his professional status, but he has more...
...throw or put the shot," he says of his new style. "I spring that thing out of there. I use my whole body, my total being." Too often, the force Oldfield generates in his spin whirls him out of the circle, disqualifying him on approximately half of his allotted attempts. "I feel confined in that circle," he says. "I have to learn not to be intimidated by it." Perhaps, but it is Oldfield himself who is the big intimidator on the I.T.A. tour. "On my baddest days," he says, "I'm better than anyone else...