Opinion | Sports

Column: Billy Mills still inspires 50 years after Olympic victory

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Billy Mills and his wife, Pat. Photo from Facebook

Billy Mills, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is touring the country to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his gold medal win at the 1964 Summer Olympics:

Billy Mills is on the phone from his home in California. At 76, his voice is as self-assured as it must have been in 1964 when he showed the world for all time what a winning kick in a distance race looks like. Billy Mills is still cool.
Fifty years? It can't be a half-century ago that he, world record holder Ron Clarke of Australia and Mohammed Gammoudi of Tunisia locked up in a last-lap duel in Tokyo in the Olympic 10,000 meters final.
Before them, a field of competitors in the process of being lapped refused to move wide and give them running room. Mills was knocked off stride by Clarke, who elbowed him to get out of a box being formed around him by Mills and one of the slower runners.
Mills was briefly staggered a second time by Gammoudi, who forced his way between both Mills and Clarke and into the lead. In the closing 100 meters, those two churned with effort, Gammoudi first, his head weaving painfully from side to side, Clarke following, his shoulders drawn up tight. This would be the order of finish. Except just to the left of them Mills was doing something transcendent.
He swept past them, so suddenly, so smoothly he appeared to be unveiling a new means of propulsion. It was like watching human evolution in action.
Mills won in an Olympic record 28:24.4. It is still the only 10,000 meter Olympic gold medal won by a U.S. man.