A LOOK BACK : Evelyne Hall Adams, Now 78, Remembers Controversial Loss to Didriksen in ’32 Olympics

Evelyne Hall Adams remembers the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics much as another woman might remember her first doll.

Whereas memories of a first doll tend to be private, memories of the ’32 Olympics linger in the minds of some others. Hall Adams, who finished an oh-so-close second to Mildred (Babe) Didriksen in one of the most controversial races of any Olympics, sometimes has to share them.

Life, these days, for Hall Adams, 78, is still an active one, of riding a bicycle and going to exercise classes.

Just recently, she was elected to the Track and Field Hall of Fame by the seniors’ subcommittee. Someone remembered.

And she will get an honorary gold medal next Friday at the opening ceremonies of the California State Games in San Diego. Someone else remembered.

But most of all, when it comes to the 1932 Olympics, and that one brief dash down the stretch in the Coliseum, Evelyne Hall Adams remembers.

First of all, she remembers 1932 as the Olympics of firsts--the first Olympic Village, the first victory stands and the first torch ceremony at the opening of the Games.

She remembers being elected “the friendliest girl in the (Olympic) village,” when she competed as Evelyne Hall.

It was also the first time the electric-eye camera, or the photo finish, was used. But since it was experimental, flesh-and-blood officials sat in final judgment.

Thus, Hall Adams must remember that women’s 80-meter hurdles as a race she lost. Unforgettable, nevertheless.

Said Hall Adams, a Minnesota native who has lived in Oceanside for seven years: “To this day, it is still remembered as the most controversial race in the Olympics.”

Didriksen, probably a name familiar to even casual sports fans, won that race with a world record. She set a world record in the high jump but was given the silver medal because her head-first dive over the bar was disallowed in a jump-off for the gold with Jean Shiley. She also won a gold medal in the javelin.

At that time, Hall Adams was an impressionable 22, in her first and only Olympics. She won her qualifying heat and remembers the final in detail.

On the morning of the race, she ate a breakfast of unbuttered toast, hot tea and applesauce, something that had become something of a ritual before important races. But she denied that she did this out of any superstition.

“Oh, no, we never thought about (superstitions) or things like that,” she said. “I had a nervous stomach, and it helped.”

Racing attire was just short of miserable.

“They gave us these wool shirts to wear,” she said. “Some of us cried, they were so uncomfortable.”

Finally, the race itself.

“Before the race, I was paralyzed,” Hall Adams said. “I went down to the (stadium) floor, and I was so wobbly, I couldn’t stand. I looked at those thousands and thousands of people, and I felt like a wet noodle. My legs buckled, my arms too.”

Reeling with anxiety, Hall found it beyond her means to dig her own starting hole, which in those days served in place of a starting block.

“I just sat on this chair,” she said. “Someone else had to dig it for me.”

As the hurdler in the inside lane, Hall took her starting position and came out at the start with conviction.

“I was always a good starter,” she said. “I was leading halfway through the race.”

What concerned her most, though, was maintaining her equilibrium for the remaining seconds.

“I had perfected my form, so I was concentrating on staying on my feet and in my lane,” she said.

At the finish, she and Didriksen crossed together, breaking the old American and world record of 12.3 seconds with a time of 11.7, which stood for 17 years.

As if to preserve its legacy and Didriksen’s accomplishments, Hall Adams discussed the race’s aftermath carefully.

She said that her fans and friends, who had watched from the stands, converged on the field afterward.

“They were standing by Tunnel 6 with their hands up, cheering, and giving me the No. 1 sign with their fingers,” she said. “They thought I had won. I thought I had won.”

A yellowed photo sits on the coffee table. She picks it up and points to the spot that looks as though her leg is slightly ahead of Didriksen’s at the finish.

“See where my leg is in this picture?” she said, a statement more than a question. “I thought I won because (Didriksen) threw her arms out, while I breasted the tape.”

The still photos, shot from various angles, are inconclusive. The record books aren’t. The official judge, positioned at the outside lane, closer to Didriksen, declared Babe the winner 30 minutes later.

A week later, the controversy continued. After a close men’s race between Ralph Metcalfe and Eddie Tolan in the 100-meter sprint, both track events were reviewed, using the new electric-eye camera. After the review, Hall Adams said: “(Olympic officials) declared that the least I had done was tied.”

She also said Olympic officials hinted that had she and Didriksen been from different countries, a protest would have been filed. But because teammates were involved, a protest was denied.

This wasn’t the first time Hall and Didriksen had raced. Before their famous duel in Los Angeles, they had raced twice in the same event. Both were tight finishes, Didriksen winning each.

Hall won three American indoor titles, in 1931, 1933, and 1935 in the 80-meter hurdles. In outdoor competition, she won the Amateur Athletic Union title for the same event in 1930.

However, the 1932 Olympics were her last.

It might have been too expensive even if she had made the team for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, because athletes were expected to provide $1,000 of their own money to get to Germany, she said.

In fact, money was so tight for Hall and her husband that they occasionally went without dinner when they needed to buy gasoline to get from one end of Chicago to another for training sessions.

Of course, at that time, a potential Olympic athlete trained without benefit of today’s elite coaching staffs, physical therapists, dietitians, sports psychologists, high-tech equipment and sponsorship.

The athlete’s sole source of motivation was self.

“It was a bit of a chore,” Hall Adams said. “We had to do it all ourselves. I never really had a coach. My husband, who was a pole vaulter and did the standing jump, would work with me. We used to (train) three or four times a week.”

Hall Adams sees today’s hurdles events as only vaguely familiar. “The track surfaces are different, the hurdles themselves are different, the clothes are different and the shoes are different,” she said.

But form?

“There’s still only one way to get over the hurdle,” she said, laughing.

Today’s competitive world compels Hall Adams to philosophize that for her generation, sport was more a joy.

“A lot of it was fun (for us,)” she said. “Now, I think that competitive sports isn’t fun anymore. A lot of it is money and sponsorship, and we didn’t have that. We competed against ourselves. It was more of an individual thing.”

She is no longer competing, but that does not mean she has stopped training.

“I’m a great believer in exercise,” she said. “If you learn to take care of your body and take care of yourself at a young age, you develop lifetime habits.”

Her proudest athletic memory and moment, as many Olympians attest, was on the Olympic victory stand.

“When I stood on the victory stand, and I think every Olympian will tell you this, it’s the most stirring moment,” she said.

“All the flags are flying, you hear and see all the people in the stands--all the men in their straw hats and white shirts and the women in their fancy hats.

“Then you see your flag go up and you hear ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ Tears well in your eyes. It’s something you never forget. Although it was 56 years ago, I can still remember it.”

Unforgettable.