The Greatest Upset? Marine Is a Contender

The greatest sports upset of the century?

Here’s one to ponder: Thirty-five years ago today, Marine Lt. Billy Mills, who hadn’t won a race in Camp Pendleton dual meets the previous spring, won the gold medal at 10,000 meters at the Tokyo Olympics.

Buster Douglas’ knockout of Mike Tyson in 1990--also in Tokyo--gets some votes for the greatest upset, but at least Tyson knew who Douglas was.

After Mills won the gold medal that day, Ronald Clarke, the heavy favorite who finished third, was asked if he had worried about Mills.

“Worried about him?” Clarke snapped. “I never heard of him.”

In the spring of 1964, Mills did not win one race while running for the Camp Pendleton track team, competing in mile and two-mile events.

But he ran one 10,000-meter race fast enough to qualify for the Olympic trials, where he finished a distant second to Gerry Lindgren. Then came Tokyo.

“I’d always known I had the speed to win an Olympic distance race, if I could just stay with the leaders,” he said, years later.

“And what a lot of people didn’t know was that all that spring, I’d been doing 20- and 25-mile runs over the hills of Camp Pendleton. When I went to Tokyo, I was ready.”

Clarke and Mills were together, just ahead of Tunisia’s Mohamed Gammoudi, at the bell lap.

Then came one of the most amazing final laps in Olympic history. Clarke, in the gathering darkness, tried to shove his way through stragglers and in the process shoved Mills toward the outside of the track. As Clarke fought to get back into contention, Gammoudi passed him.

Clarke regained the lead, but then from nowhere Mills began his charge, overtaking both and winning the race by three yards. He crossed the finish line arms raised, a look of rapture on his face.

That remains the only time an American has won the Olympic 10,000 meters.

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Also on this date: In 1965, Sandy Koufax, pitching on two days’ rest and relying almost exclusively on fastballs for nine innings (“My curve wasn’t there at all,” he said later), beat Minnesota, 2-0, on a three-hitter to give the Dodgers their fourth World Series championship.