Moments of Melbourne, Part 10 - Monday, December 3rd, 1956

Long before Greg Louganis became the most famous diver of all time, a young woman from California had achieved the very accomplishment as the legend. When she came to Melbourne, Patricia McCormick (26) had already cashed in two gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Games (see film below). On December 3rd, 1956, she started her attempt to repeat the double - which she finally did successfully (picture: Team USA).

Already as a child, McCormick (called "Patsy Pest" by friends) was a daredevil of a diver, trying jumps considered to risky even for men and not allowed in female competitions. The Seal Beach, California native liked to show off her skills from Los Alamitos Bridge in Long Beach. "We loved to jump just before the boat passed under the bridge and we’d just splash them," she remembered.

Still, Olympic success did not come easily for McCormick. She missed the 1948 London Games by a margin of two points at the trials, which made her work even harder. In Helsinki, she was by far the best diver in the world and won both the springboard and the platform event. Back home in the States, the golden girl earned additional notoriety for putting the underwear of U,S, Olympic Comittee president Avery Brundage up on a flag pole.

Four years later (and five months after the birth of her first son), she again won relatively easy from the three meters springboard. But in the platform final, McCormick was only in fourth position with one dive to go. Climbing up the ten meters tower for her final dive, she remembered a friend's advice: "You can live a lifetime in a moment." Moments later, McCormick nailed a perfect one and a half summersault with a full twist that earned her her fourth Olympic gold (picture: China Daily).

Melbourne made the perfect glamour girl of Pat: She later worked as a model for California swimsuits, appeared on the CBS TV show "To Tell the Truth", had her own talent search foundation "Pat's Champs" and served on the organizing comittee for the 1984 Los Angeles Games. It was at these Games that Louganis's star began to shine - and that of another McCormick: Pat's daughter Kelly won a silver in springboard diving.

Patricia McCormick, who in 1965 became one of the first members of the International Swimming Hall of Fame, still lives under the California sun.

News of the day: Australia's swimmers win the 4 x 200 meters freestyle relay ahead of the USA +++ Once again, the fencers from Hungary grab the gold in the men's sabre team event.

Moments of Melbourne, Part 9 - Saturday, December 1st, 1956

Whenever Hungarian athletes competed at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, it was a highly emotional affair. The bloody ending to the revolution in their home country, caused by the invasion of Soviet tanks, earned them sympathy around the world and also in Down Under. For the Hungarian athletes in Australia, the main topic (besides competition) was the question whether to go home after the end of the Games or to emigrate to the west.

One of the most famous athletes who would finally go home again, was legendary Laszlo Papp. He made history on December 1st by becoming the first boxer to win gold at three consecutive Olympics (picture: Sportschau).

Many Hungarian team mates gathered around the ring when Papp took on American future world champion Jose Torres for his light middleweight gold medal bout - and the 30 year old veteran did not disappoint them. Although Torres gave him a hard time (picture:ORF), Papp kept his unbeaten record thanks to a split 2-1 decision by the judges. Papp had dominated this weight class four years ealier in Helsinki - after he had become middleweight champion at the first post-war Games in 1948 at London

Boxing had not been on Papp's mind all his life. As a little boy, he tried many different sports. When he took up boxing, some experts thought his hands were too small and fragile. With superb technique and strategy, Papp proved all skeptics wrong, winning not only three Olympic gold medals, but also two European championships.

The re-established communist regime of Janos Kadar rewarded Papp's return to Budapest with the allowance to become a professional. "I fight for money, but I am not greedy. How many steaks can one man eat?", he remarked ironically.  In 27 professional bouts, Papp - who lived in Vienna and got an Austrian boxing license - remained unbeaten and became European middleweight champion. But when he had a chance to box for the world championship in the Unted States, promotors did not want a "communist champion". The government's allowance was subsequently withdrawn.

Papp retired and became a renowned coach of many young Hungarian boxing hopfuls. He died in 2003. Some of the team mates who watched his final amateur bout in Melbourne on December 1st, 1956, Laszlo Papp has never met again (picture: Boxrec).

News of the day: Bantam weight boxer Wolfgang Behrendt from Berlin wins the first ever Olympic title for the German Democratic Republic (as a member of the unified German team) +++ Further Boxing gold medals go to the USSR (three), the USA and Great Britain (two each) and Romania +++ In freestyle wrestling, Turkey and Iran both grab two golds +++ On the last day of athletics, France's Alain Mimoun wins the marathon, defeating his life-long nemesis Emil Zatopek (Czechoslovakia/sixth place) +++ The USA wins both men's relays, Australia the women's sprint relay +++ Ireland's Ron Delaney surprisingly prevails in the men's 1500 meters, while Mildred McDaniel (USA) wins the women's high jump +++ Led by future NBA star Bill Russel, the US team grabs another basketball crown +++ In shooting, Wassili Borissov (USSR) wins the free rifle competition and Italy's Galliano Rossini the litter pigeons +++ Swimmer Bill Yorzik (USA) becomes the 200 meters butterfly champion, while Australia's Dawn Fraser is fastest in the women's 100 meters freestyle +++ Bob Clotworthy wins another springboard diving gold for the USA +++ In canoeing's 1000 meters finals, the gold medals are won by Romania (two), Sweden and Germany, Russia's Jelisaveta Dementijeva wins the women's 500 meters K1.

Notice: On December 2nd, 1956, no competitions were held due to Sunday sports restrictions. Our next post comes to you on December 3rd.

Moments of Melbourne, Part 3 - Saturday, November 24th, 1956

The story of a hammer thrower winning Olympic gold with a crippled arm would have been enough to make tabloid headlines. But there was even more to the triumph of Harold Connolly at Melbourne. Love was in the air - a love that was stronger than Cold War borders.

When Harold Connolly won the gold on the afternoon of Saturday, November 24th, 1956, he did so against all odds. Following several childhood injuries, his right arm was nine centimeters shorter than his left, preventing Connolly from becoming a professional boxer as he had hoped for. But the handicap raised his fighting spirit: "I was a handicapped person who knows the agony of all-out trying and not accomplishing. They didn’t treat the disabled with dignity then. I couldn’t stand to be treated differently."

Instead, the man from Massachussets turned to hammer throwing. In his career, he broke the world record six times and in 1960 became the first man to throw the hammer over the 70 meters line. In Melbourne, he defeated the Soviet favourites Mikhail Krivonossov and Anatoli Samozvetov with a throw of 63.19 meters (picture: hmmrmedia).

But Connolly had more than gold on his mind.

In the week before the Games, he had met Czech discus thrower Olga Fikotová in the Olympic village. Fikotová won the gold 24 hours before Connolly's triumph. They fell in love immediately, accompanied by a lot of fanfare in the western media. The fact that the couple-to-be lived on different sides of the Iron Curtain added to the drama. Three months after the Olympics, Connolly proposed to Fikotová in Prague. After the Czech president had given his permission, they married in October 1957 with 30,000 well-whishers looking on (pictures: UCI/Getty).

"The H-bomb overhangs us like a cloud of doom. The subway during rush hours is almost impossible to endure," The New York Times wrote on the day after their marriage. "But Olga and Harold are in love, and the world does not say no to them." From then on, the Connollys were regular guests in American TV and papers and had a son. But the honeymoon did not last forever. The marriage was divorced in 1974. What remained were two Olympic gold medals and the feel-good story of Melbourne. Connolly, who in 1983 had admitted the use of anabolic steroid during his athletic career, died in August 2010, aged 79.

News of the day: Bobby Morrow (USA) becomes the fastest man on earth, winning the 100 meters dash ahead of fellow American Thane Baker and Australia's Hector Hogan +++ Further athletics gold go to Glenn Davis (USA) in the 400 meters hurdles, Norman Read (New Zealand) in the 50 km race walk, and Greg Bell (USA) in the long jump. +++ The first two golds for the USSR are won by weightlifters Igor Rybak (Light weight) and Fiodor Bogdanovski (Middle weight).

Notice: On November 25th, 1956, no competitions were held due to Sunday sports restrictions. Our next post comes to you on November 26th.