Very few athletes manage to dominate the Olympics stage over a long period of time. Ray Ewry, the standing jump expert from the US did that between 1900 and 1908. And then came Al Oerter and Carl Lewis. Both won four Olympic gold medals on the trot in an individual event. They will always have a special place in Olympic history.
When he made his Olympic debut in 1956, Alfred Oerter was a relatively unknown discus thrower. Though he had good credentials, the favourites were Adolfo Consolini of Italy and Oerter’s US team-mate Fortune Gordien. Oerter, however, surprised his better-rated rivals with an opening throw of 56.36 that was an Olympic record and a personal best. That mark stood the course of the competition and the world had a 20-year-old Olympic champion.
Of course, none could have imagined that the New Yorker would go on to add three more Olympic titles in an illustrious career in which he set four world records.
Having suffered his first loss in more than two years to Rink Babka in the US Olympic trials in 1960, Oerter’s chances were not rated high when the Games began in Rome. Still, he won. Babka, the then world record holder, was the early leader, with a 58.02, but Oerter nailed another personal best at 59.18 in the penultimate round. It was another Olympic record.
By the time the Tokyo Olympics came around, Oerter held the world record at 62.94. But then there was a serious rival for the American in Ludvik Danek of Czechoslovakia. As ill luck would have it, Oerter had a dislocated cervical vertebra which necessitated a neck brace. He had torn cartilages in his lower rib cage and had to keep ice packs on his right side to prevent internal haemorrhaging.
Despite advice from his doctors to take rest for six weeks, Oerter competed in Tokyo, without the neck brace. He qualified with a 60.54, a new Olympic record and that must have put the pressure on his rivals including Danek.
In the final, Danek took the lead in the fourth round with 60.52, but Oerter came back with 61.00 in the next. He beat four others who at one time had held the world record.
In 1968, at his last Olympics, Oerter had a personal best of 64.78, beating Danek and world record holder Jay Sylvester of the US. Oerter died, at the age of 71, on October 1, 2007. He was a true legend.
K. P. Mohan
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