l'age 20-Friday, August 1, 1980-The Michigan Daily
OLYMPIC ROUNDUP
Pole sets record despite crowd
MOSCOW (AIP)-Wladysiaw,
Kozakiewicz of Poland overcame the
distractions of unruly Soviet fans in the
stands to break the world record in the
pole vault and almost become history's
first 19-foot vertical jumper. And Cuban
boxer Teofilo Stevenson moved toward
his own piece of Olympic history
yesterday in the heavyweight division.
Stevenson took a unanimous decision
over Hungarian Istvan Levai in a fight
that saw the same kind of sour crowd
reaction that has marked much of the
past two days of Olympic competition.
Stevenson now heads into the final
round of the heavyweight competition,
where he hopes to win his third straight
Olympic gold. In the Saturday final he
will take on Soviet fighter Pyotr Zaev,
who scored a 5-0 decision over East
German Juergen Fanhaenl earlier
today.
The lack of action wasn't entirely
Stevenson's fault. He kept looking for
an opening to fire his famed right hand,
but the Hungarian wouldn't give it to
him.
From the opening bell, Levai, who
was knocked out by Stevenson in
Budapest last year, was on the defen-
sive, with the Hungarian in a crouch
and his gloves held high in front of his
face, Stevenson had to resort to his jab
and threw at least 200 of them in the
three-round fight.
The Cubait did manage to get in a
couple of rights to the head late in the
bout, but never could get Levai in
trouble.
Stevenson's victory gave the Cuban
team its sixth fighter in the finals. Four
more were to try to make Saturday's
finals last night.
In fact, only two winners in the 12-
bout semifinal card yesterday after-
noon were not Cubans or Soviets. They
were Bernardo Pinango of Venezuela
and John Mugabi of Uganda, who both
won 3-2 decisions.
Pinango got up from a second-round
bout against Romania's Dumitru
Cipere. The -hard-punching Mugabi,
who had scored knockouts in his three.
previous fights, edged Kazimierz Sz-
czerba of Poland.
Track an1Field
MOSCOW (AP) - Animated Steve
Ovett and calm Sebastian Coe set up
their anxiously awaited first-ever
showdown meeting in the 1,500-meter
race and Bronislaw Malinowski wore
down Filbert Bayi in the 3,000-meter
seeplechase yesterday at the Olympic
Games.
Ovett and Coe share the world record
of 3 minutes, 32.1 seconds for 1,500
meters, but the Britons avoided each
other at that distance.
The suspense will end today when the
archrivals step on the Lenin Stadium
track at 6:05 p.m., 11:05 a.m. EDT for
the major confrontation over the
classic metric mile distance.
Malinowski, of Poland, much bigger
and stronger than the slightly built
Bayi, outlegged the tiring Tanzanian
over the final lap with a brutal finishing
kick and won the steeplechase in 8:09.7,
the fastest time in the world this year.
In yesterday's other finals, Yuri
Sedykh of the Soviet Union won the
men s hammer throw for the second
consecutive time, with a world record
heave of 268 feet, 4 inches, and Tatyana
Kolpakova, another Sovietm took the
women's long jump at 23-2.
The track and field competition, the
blue-ribbon sport of the Games, will end
tonight with 10 finals, including the
featured men's 1,500.
In that expected masterpiece, Ovett
will be seeking to extend his winning-
streak to 29 and Coe will be seeking to
avenge the bitter loss he suffered to
Ovett last Saturday in the 800-meter
final.
The two Britishers set the stage for
that final by winning their semifinal
heats last night.
Ovett, toying with the other eight
runners in his heat, breezed home in
3:43.1.
As he came down the final
straightaway, he waved and smiled to a
crowd of British flagbearers. Then as
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Olympic
Roundup
he crossed the finish line, he kept smiling
and drew the letters I-L-Y in the air.
The I-L-Y stands for I Love You and
was dedicated to his girlfriend.
Coe, running relaxed and without
animation, won his heat in 3:39.4.
In the 3,000-meter steeplechase,
Bayi jumped to a big early lead and
seemed to have the gold medal clin-
ched. But the lean Tanzanian, running
only the sixth steeplechase of his
career-he has been a 1,500 meter and
mile specialist-wilted under the
grueling comeback of Malinowski.
At one time, the Pole must have
trailed by at least 50 yards. But he
never gave up and finally caught the
fading Bayi with about 150 meters
remaining.
This was the third consecutive Olym-
pics in which Malinowski had won a
medal in the steeplechase. He only took
the bronze in 1972 at Munich and earned
the silver in 1976 at Montreal.
"I have been waiting for 'this gold
medal for 13 years," said the 29-year-
old Malinowski. "I already had Olym-
picbronze and silver medals, and now I
have a gold.
"Now my only goal is to establish a
world record."
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AP Photo
POLAND'S WLADYSLAV KOZAKIEWICS holds the gold medal he won for
his Olympic pole vault of 18 feet, Ili/ inches in Moscow's Lenin Stadium
Wednesday night. The vault was an Olympic and world record.
TICKET SALES DOWN:
Hearns and Cuevas play it cool
DETROIT (AP) - Pipino Cuevas and Thomas
Hearns had little to say yesterday, but they were
almost alone in their silence as the hype and hoopla
crested for their World Boxing Association welter-
weight championship fight.
Cuevas, reigning WBA champion from Mexico,
defends his title for the 12th time in the Saturday
night bout against Hearns, who will be fighting before
home-town fans at Joe Louis Arena here.
The two fighters posed briefly for photographs at
an unofficial weigh-in ceremony at riverfront Hart
Plaza on the riverfront, then were whisked away by
their managers.
NEITHER HEARNS nor Cuevas spoke during the
weigh-in, but even if they had, it is doubtful they,
could have been heard over the clamor of a mariachi
band, a conga band and several hundred fight fans
and curious passersby on hand for the event.
The weigh-in was preceded by a parade - in-
cluding the bands and four antique fire engines -
through downtown Detroit in an effort to drum up in-
terest in the fight, which has turned out to be less than
a knockout at the box office.
Joe Louis Arena has 20,000 seats, but fewer than
10,000 tickets had been sold by yesterday. Some fans
have been angered by ticket prices ranging from $25
to $500 that they claim are far too high for a city
staggering under the weight of extensive auto in-.
dustry layoffs.
BUT BOOKER GRIFFIN, a spokesman for the
fight's promoter, said the prices were determined by
the choice of the smaller, downtown arena over the
80,000-seat Silverdome in suburban Pontiac.
He added that despite slow ticket sales at the
arena, the sale of closed-circuit television rights and
delayed broadcast rights to CBS already have
brought the fight above the break-even point.
The local furor over ticket prices and sales has
almost overshadowed the fighters, who finished their
final heavy training for the bout Wednesday.
CUEVAS GOES into the fight with a 27-5 record. He
has 24 knockouts, including his first title victory and
10 of 11 title defenses.
Hearns has an umblemished 28-0 professional
record, including 26 knockouts. At 6-foot-2, he has a
five-inch height advantage over the 5-foot-9 Cuevas
and a reach advantage of 5 inches.
The six-bout fight card also features the first title
defense by WBA lightweight champion Hilmer Ken-
ty, also of Detroit, against Yong Ho Oh of Korea.
A third title fight pits WBA junior lightweight
champion Sammy Serrano of Puerto Rico against
challenger Yasutsune Ushara, Japan's junior light-
weight champion.
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