Word: rafe
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...amassed a world-record 8,302 points in the rugged decathlon*—:considered by many the toughest test of human endurance ever devised in sport. Russian men and women edged the U.S. 172-170 in their dual meet last week, and Soviet papers duly hailed the feat, but Rafe Johnson was the big hero. Said Moscow's Trud of his performance : "It will dignify the history of world athletic records for a long time to come...
...Gonna Win." To beat the muscular Kuznetsov, Rafe Johnson had to better his best, since only ten weeks ago Kuznetsov had scored 8,013-28 points better than Johnson's own world-record 7,985. The Russians shortened the interval between events from half an hour to 20 minutes, but it bothered Rafe not a bit. "I like the interval even shorter," he said, "only about five or ten minutes to catch my breath." With the event half over...
Fancy Routine. They may have been fickle, but the fans also were safe enough in their choice. For Rafe Johnson already held the world's record in the ten-event test that is an all-but-unrecognizable descendant of the pentathlon* of ancient Olympic times. In his home town of Kingsburg, Calif, last year, he ran up an astonishing total of 7,985 points, 98 more than Bob Mathias' winning Olympic performance in 1952, a fat 338 more than the best ever scored by his fast-improving prospective chief rival at Melbourne this fall, Russia's Vasiliy...
...underrate his own talents or misjudge a rival, Johnson began pointing for the 1956 contest back in 1952, when as a 16-year-old high-school sophomore he went to Tulare, Calif., to see Bob Mathias earn a trip to his second Olympics. The complicated scoring was beyond young Rafe (as it is beyond almost everyone else but the judges), but he was not too modest to decide that he was as good as or better than most of the entrants...
...Rafe went home to Kingsburg, tuned up by going out for every sport he could. He worked out no special training routine for the demanding decathlon, simply determined to spend four hours a day practicing whichever event suited his or his coach's fancy, a routine he still follows...