Conspicuously Missing From Olympic Track: Louvre Run

It is, I suppose, understandable that the track and field competition in the Olympics will not include one of history’s most unusual running events: the sprint through the Louvre to determine who can view the Paris museum’s three best-known exhibits in the shortest time.

The event was staged by a USC dropout named Art Buchwald a half century ago to mimic the actions of impatient tourists who want to be able to boast afterward that they’ve seen da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and the Greek treasures, Venus de Milo and Winged Victory.

On the historic day, author Buchwald pretended to fire off a starting pistol and sent fellow writer Peter Stone on his way. “You always have to say something when you look at the Mona Lisa,” Buchwald noted in his autobiography, “and Peter said, ‘I know the guy who has the original.’ ” Then Stone galloped home in 5 minutes and 56 seconds, proving, as Buchwald said, that the “6-minute Louvre” could be broken.

I confess I had forgotten about Buchwald’s achievement until I came across a mention of it during a light moment in the best-selling thriller “The Da Vinci Code.” Hope I’m not giving anything away when I say that author Dan Brown does not otherwise involve Buchwald in the mystery of “The Da Vinci Code.”

Life after USC: Buchwald, who left school early to make it as a writer in Paris, spent countless hours in the Louvre, mainly because it was a good place to meet young ladies.

And the impoverished writer was delighted to discover that many of the women he met didn’t mind going “Dutch treat” on dates.

“At USC,” he wrote, “if I had even hinted that a coed pay for her coffee, she would have pushed me out of her speeding convertible.”

Sounds like...: John Johnson of El Segundo noticed that one of NBC’s closed-caption broadcasts out of Athens neglected to say whether the detectors there were gold, silver or bronze (see photo).

Unclear on the concept: In an active-volcano area of Hawaii, Michael Bird found one former hilly road that no longer requires a speed-limit sign, except, perhaps, for all-terrain vehicles (see photo).

Fore! Rick Tello of Castaic saw an ad for some accommodations that sound fine as long as your sleeping bags are thick enough to blunt the impact of incoming spheroids (see accompanying).

miscelLAny: Author Buchwald is only one of many people who achieved prominence after dropping out of USC. Others include actor John Wayne, producer David Wolper, actor/director Ron Howard and Josh Schwartz, creator of the hit TV series “The O.C.” In fact, I’m surprised that USC hasn’t taken advantage of this list with a recruiting message that mentions those names and adds, “Why not give USC a try? You don’t even have to graduate to be a success in life!”

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATimes, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.