Word: whitfield
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Among cold-war diplomats, the tall, loose-jointed young man was a refreshing rarity. He moved too fast (100,000 miles in five months) ever to get involved with striped-trouser protocol. Wherever he went, U.S. Olympic Champion Malvin Whitfield took off his pants and got right to work...
...Whitfield, 30, work meant running and making friends for the U.S. From Iceland to the heart of the Congo, the limber-legged Negro demonstrated the smooth style and strenuous training techniques that have won him two Olympic gold medals (at 800 meters in 1948 and 1952) and helped him set ten middle-distance marks. * Everywhere, he managed to give local runners a quick course of expert coaching, lead them through exhausting calisthenics and still had strength enough to run the legs off the fastest trackmen around. Seldom has the U.S. State Department sponsored so popular an ambassador...
Extraordinary Fellow. Along the way, ex-Air Force Sergeant Whitfield had his troubles. In Reykjavik, at the start of his tour, he ran head-on into competition from a Russian road show. Angered because Whitfield was outdrawing them four to one, the Russians did their best to take his mind off his job; they even planted a pretty girl in the room next to his at the hotel. "She started giving me the glad eye," Mai remembers, "but I don't go for that obvious stuff. I wasn't upset...
...pleased surprise, Whitfield had his greatest success in Africa. In Kenya's capital of Nairobi, Mai talked a mixed crowd of Africans, Indians and white businessmen into shucking their shirts, trousers, shoes and socks and working out on the half-mile grass track...
...Whitfield, 30, the world's best half-miler, won the James E. Sullivan Memorial Trophy as the U.S. amateur athlete "who, by performance, example and good influence, did the most to advance the cause of good sportsmanship during the year." "Marvelous Mai," the first Negro winner of the Sullivan Trophy since it was established in 1930, actually had his best year in 1953, but his amateur standing was under scrutiny then (he has since been fully cleared...