“A Three-Way Battle in Montreal”
by Rob Leachman
From the “Great Rivalries of Olympic Track and Field” Series
This Series
- Mac Wilkins and John Powell – Montreal 1976 – Part I
- Mac Wilkins and John Powell – Montreal 1976 – Part II
Just as two Americans, Mac Wilkins and John Powell, were solidifying their positions atop the discus world, a talented athlete from East Germany, arguably the most athletic discus thrower of his time, injected himself into the intense Wilkins-Powell rivalry.
Wolfgang Schmidt
Quite possibly the greatest threat to Wilkins in Montreal was a young, ruggedly handsome, and incredibly athletic thrower from East Germany, or as it was officially known the German Democratic Republic (GDR). At the age of just twenty-two in the summer of 1976, Wolfgang Schmidt had improved rapidly since setting a World Junior Record of 202-4 three years earlier. With an atypically tall and lithe body for a discus thrower, at 6-5½ and 227, Schmidt had long arms and surprising explosiveness. In the months leading up to the Montreal Games, he had handed Wilkins his only pre-Olympic defeat with a personal best throw of 225-1. Of Schmidt in 1976, Wilkins projected, “He’s strong, he’s got good technique, and he’s going to get better. He could even get the world record.” With this last suggestion, Wilkins would prove to be prophetic.
Working within the East German system, Wolfgang Schmidt had initially prospered given the advantages he enjoyed. His father, Ernst had been one of the greatest decathletes in the world before becoming the East German national throws coach. Talented in a variety of events, it was perhaps no surprise that the son of the national throws coach would become a thrower. Though a communist system that utilized athletic success as a symbol of state superiority could provide distinct benefits to top athletes, it could also be stifling, which Schmidt would eventually and tragically experience.
By the time of the Montreal Games, Wilkins considered his East German rival to be his friend, though later circumstances would deepen that relationship significantly. The two had first met the previous year at a meet in Finland, a competition in which the young Schmidt threw a personal best and defeated Wilkins. The two met next at a meet in West Germany shortly after Wilkins had gone on his streak of four world records in eight days. Setting a European record in the process, Schmidt won that competition as well. Intrigued by the East German, Wilkins asked Schmidt to accompany him to a disco that evening. Acting as a sort of political chaperone, the East German team leader escorted Schmidt that evening, a common occurrence for athletes from Eastern Bloc communist nations. It was only through some deceptive maneuvering that the two throwers were able to conduct a conversation out of earshot of the chaperone, asking two girls to dance so they could briefly speak about throwing and politics and the challenges presented by each of their countries. There was a mutual respect that quickly developed between the two, and Schmidt was particularly impressed by how Wilkins was so accepting of him; “I had never met such a man before,” Schmidt proclaimed later, and a friendship was established that would take on many different forms over the next several years.
Upon his return to East Germany, Schmidt was not hesitant to talk about his contact with Wilkins and other athletes from the West. His father Ernst, a part of the East German sports establishment, warned his son about the extreme risks he was taking, that the government would take action against him if he didn’t at least stop flaunting the contact the authorities so strongly discouraged. “You are running into an open knife,” his father warned him. Time would prove the prescience of that warning.
In 1976, however, the great challenges Wolfgang Schmidt would experience were still in the future. But on the eve of the Montreal Games, he was considered not only a medal threat but also a legitimate contender for the Olympic title.
Showdown at the Montreal Olympics
Of the American contingent in the men’s discus, John Powell was a conservative San Jose policeman and Jay Silvester was a Mormon family man. At the other end of the spectrum was their teammate Mac Wilkins, comparatively a rebel who decried how American athletes were treated and controlled by the various governing bodies, in the case of track and field in 1976 the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). As the Montreal Games approached, Wilkins’ anger about this treatment had reached a boiling point, and he was not shy about sharing his thoughts with anyone, including the press.
Wilkins’ close friend and training partner in the mid-1970s was Al Feuerbach, national champion and former world record-holder in the shot put. The two throwers by this point in their careers were largely self-coached, knew the type of training they needed, and wanted to complete that training how, when, and where they deemed best. But the USOC had established a schedule for the athletes to check into the Olympic Village and expected every athlete to gratefully travel to Montreal as a team.
The track and field team had spent a week at a training camp in Plattsburgh, New York, and Wilkins and Feuerbach had attended as expected. Several days before the opening ceremonies, and ten or eleven days before the men’s discus and shot put, the USOC expected all athletes to travel together to Montreal. As Wilkins explained, “Al and I decided we didn’t want to check into the (Olympic) Village that far ahead of our events. I knew what it would be like; it would be mass chaos and constant stimulation, and when you get too much of that your mind goes blank, and . . . you can’t concentrate.” As they had requested of various officials on multiple occasions over the past year, the two throwers wanted to stay in an apartment in Montreal as long as possible before their events and then check into the Olympic Village as late as International Olympic Committee regulations allowed. Official responses had ranged from evasive to non-committal, so when a caravan of vehicles arrived in Plattsburgh to take the team to Montreal, Wilkins and Feuerbach refused to go. After some machinations and then some haggling, USOC officials finally acquiesced and allowed the two to stay in an apartment around two hours from Montreal. For Wilkins, it had been a huge hassle and great waste of energy, but in the end, they had been able to control both their training and the environment in which it occurred. As Wilkins later reflected, “. . . they could have kicked me off the team if they wanted to, but I was willing to take my chances with that if push came to shove. One of the strongest US gold medal contenders, the removal of Mac Wilkins from the team seemed highly unlikely.
While he and Feuerbach stayed in an apartment in the small city of Trois-Rivieres, Wilkins completed some outstanding workouts, which continued after they checked into the Olympic Village three days before the beginning of his competition. On the day before the qualifying rounds, he threw well over 230 in a practice session, an even more impressive distance given the disadvantageous wind that was blowing. As he reflected sometime later, “It was one of those times when, after the workout, you sit down to write in your diary, and you realize what you’ve done and what you’re capable of doing. It’s kind of overwhelming, and it brings tears to your eyes.” On the eve of the biggest competition of his career, at least thus far, Mac Wilkins realized that if he performed anywhere close to his potential, he would be the Olympic champion.
For John Powell, who was completing one of the best seasons of his career, such a coronation of Wilkins was a bit premature, though he realized that his rival was performing at an incredibly high level. As he reflected several weeks before the Games, “I wouldn’t say I’m ‘undaunted’ by his performances. ‘Motivated’ is a better word.” Assuming a semi-sarcastic tone, he continued, “I know you guys are really on my side, the side of the little guy. I’m just little David picking up the rock and getting ready to throw.” Though he was clearly the underdog to Wilkins and possibly Schmidt as well, almost forgotten was Powell’s status as the world record-holder when the season had begun.
For track and field fans, the Montreal Olympics included countless historic performances, including Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner’s dominating world record in the decathlon, Finnish distance star Lasse Viren’s repeat of his 1972 gold medal performances in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs, the world record-shattering performance of Polish legend Irena Szewinska in the women’s 400, and Cuban star Alberto Juantorena becoming the first athlete to win both the 400 and 800 in the same Olympics.
Though perhaps not as historic as some of these legendary performances, the men’s discus was not without drama. On the Saturday morning before the Sunday final, the athletes filed into the sparsely filled Olympic Stadium for the qualifying rounds. Each athlete received up to three attempts to qualify for the finals the following day. The top twelve throwers, plus any others reaching 196-10, would continue, though no distances from the qualifying rounds would carry over to the actual competition. For top throwers like Wilkins, Powell, and Schmidt, qualifying for the final was largely a formality, though a combination of poor throws and fouls could quickly result in the elimination of any thrower. For many athletes, though, the Olympic stage is the largest, most visible, and most pressure-packed in the sport, and how each might react to that environment could only be ascertained in that setting.
On an adjacent field, Wilkins took only two practice throws before his qualifying round, a light warmup compared to his typical routine. Those two tosses, though, suggested that he was primed for a stellar performance, as observers suggested his first practice throw reached 230 and the second 236, well beyond his world record. All the nervous tension, the frustration with USOC officials, his eagerness to compete in his first Olympics, all of these emotions were apparently coming to a peak; Wilkins was ready.
But first he had to wait. The athletes in his group entered a small room where for around twenty minutes officials checked their equipment, uniforms, competitor numbers, etc. before they entered the stadium. As he reflected a decade later, as he waited for his first qualifying throw, Wilkins watched his teammates John Powell and Jay Silvester on their initial attempts. “They were very tense and dumped their throws, hitting 150 to 160 feet . . .,” he recalled. “As I watched them, it was very clear to me what I had to do to win, and I remember thinking, ‘What is it with these guys? Get them out of there: I can show you how to do it. Let me in there.’ I was just bursting with eagerness, but I knew I had to be very conservative and restrain myself.” Both Powell and Silvester easily qualified on their second throws.
Donned like his teammates in the official US uniform of blue shorts and a red singlet with USA emblazoned on the front and back, when his turn came, Wilkins strode into the ring with a look of intensity on his face. He momentarily faced the throwing sector and then turned and positioned himself at the back of the ring. Turning and moving across the ring with his trademark style, Wilkins launched the discus in a low and wobbly arc and then struggled to stay in the ring before watching as the implement dented the turf. The throw measured 224-0, at the time the twelfth-best performance in the history of the event and a throw made more impressive by the still conditions in the enclosed stadium. Quickly and early in the competition, Al Oerter’s Olympic record from eight years earlier in Mexico City had been surpassed by a striking eleven-and-a-half feet. Wilkins was not among the impressed, suggesting afterward that he would have been disappointed had he not thrown as far as he did. Once an athlete exceeded the automatic qualifying mark, he advanced to the final and received no additional qualifying throws. Many years later Wilkins recalled that after what he believed was a flawed Olympic record qualifying throw, “. . . I stood for a second thinking maybe I should step out of the circle so I’d get another try and really throw it far. And I said, ‘No, I’m a wild and crazy guy, but not that wild and crazy.’” Even a fierce and highly-confident competitor like Mac Wilkins drew the line at intentionally fouling on a record-breaking throw.
No other thrower came within fifteen feet of Wilkins’ early marker, and some observers suggested that the world record holder had placed a virtual lock on the gold medal with a dominating qualifying throw that wouldn’t even carry over to the final. As Wilkins suggested afterward in a matter-of-fact manner, “I just wanted to get a good throw to assert my dominance and give the others something to think about. Guess I got one.” Some of his chief rivals seemed to agree, with John Powell suggesting, “He’s on his way to sewing it up. I don’t see how he can be stopped.” There were still six rounds of final throws to be conducted, but for all intents and purposes with Wilkins “asserting his dominance” everyone else was competing for silver and bronze medals.
By the next day’s final, as Wilkins recalled, “the energy was different.” As he continued, “It was my first time at the Olympics. I’d beaten the existing Olympic record by twelve feet in qualifying. There’s a big excitement there. You have to recover from that. I had to put my body, my mind, my technique, and put it all together. It wasn’t coming together as easily on that day.” Still, it took all of two rounds for the winner to be largely determined.
At the end of the first round, Schmidt was in second off his 206-11 and Powell was in third with a 205-0, both trailing the leader, Finnish thrower Pentti Kahma who reached 207-1 and would finish fifth. As Wilkins recalled a decade later, “On my first throw I was trying to get cute, and I did something different with my technique, and that throw went about 201 feet (actually 202-8). That made me a little nervous.” But as he commented immediately after the event, “Then I took care of everything in the second round.”
In the second round, with both knees encased with black braces, Powell strode into the ring and unleashed a 210-9 throw that put him in the lead, as had similarly occurred in the 1972 Games. Wolfgang Schmidt on his second attempt fouled. As he prepared for his second throw, Wilkins paced around behind the discus cage thinking about the task at hand. As he recalled, “We had about twenty-five minutes between throws, and that gave me some time to think about what was going on. I thought, come on, don’t blow it. You’ve got this thing right here in your pocket.” On his second attempt, Wilkins largely regained his form, releasing the discus in a much higher arc. As he later reflected on that pivotal throw, “I went easy on my second shot, and I had that effortless feeling at the finish of the throw, which means that everything was fine, perfect.” While not a perfect throw, it was impressive nonetheless, particularly given the pressures of the event and the windless conditions. With a 221-5 effort, Mac Wilkins had taken what would prove to be an insurmountable lead and the large American contingent in the stadium reacted enthusiastically. Hearing the roar of the crowd and sensing the throw was a good one, Wilkins turned to the back of the ring and thrust his hand in the air as he left the throwing area, not waiting for the measurement. For all practical purposes, the first gold medal in track and field in the 1976 Games had been secured.
But the remainder of the competition was not without drama. In the third round, Powell solidified his silver medal position with a solid 215-7 while Schmidt moved into third place with a 213-9. Though three rounds remained, Wilkins, Powell, and Schmidt had a lock on the three medals, though the color each received was still unclear. The third American, Jay Silvester, earned a spot in the finals and would finish eighth with a 203-4, his long and storied Olympic career coming to an end.
Little changed in the fourth and fifth rounds, though on his fourth attempt, Schmidt had a throw of around 216 that would have surpassed Powell but was ruled a foul. The official indicated that Schmidt’s foot had brushed the raised area at the front of the circle, a call that the thrower disputed as he stood in the ring and yelled at the official; the call stood, nonetheless.
In the final round, with the medal order to be determined, John Powell entered the ring hoping to solidify his second-place position if not unseat Wilkins for the gold. Standing at the front of the circle for an extended time as he contemplated what he needed to accomplish, he crossed the ring with his typically efficient form and released the discus with a prodigious yell. The throw measured 210-9, identical to his throw in the second round that had momentarily put him in the lead. Powell would get the medal he had been narrowly denied four years earlier, but he would finish no better than in the silver medal position.
That left young Wolfgang Schmidt. Dressed in his blue East German singlet over a white t-shirt and long blue warm-up pants with the bottom zippers undone, Schmidt had demonstrated the potential to surpass Wilkins’ best throw of the day, and certainly to surpass Powell for the silver. The tall and lanky East German champion took his time in the ring as he prepared for the throw. He released the discus and watched as it completed its long flight. The platter landed past the sixty-five-meter line, not long enough to challenge Wilkins but close to Powell’s best effort. Knowing he was close to moving from third to second, Schmidt impatiently waited for the throw to be measured. When the scoreboard flashed the result, 217-3, the silver medal was his. What ensued after the throw would provide a competitive event with its requisite controversy.
Thrilled that he had surpassed Powell to win the silver medal, Schmidt thrust his hands in the air and turned to Wilkins who was nearby, and the gold medalist gave his rival and friend a bear hug and lifted him off the ground.
Wilkins still had one throw remaining. Entering the circle to loud applause, Wilkins reached 217-0, not an improvement but the gold medal was his. As he commented afterward, “After the second throw I was just trying to put one out there. I guess I’m kind of disappointed. I wanted a long throw.” Time would diminish any sort of disappointment he felt, and he would come to consider the Montreal Games to be “the highlight of my athletic career.” Wilkins would win the Olympic Trials in 1980, earning a spot on the team that would not go to Moscow. He would again qualify for the Olympics in 1984, and though considered by many to be the favorite, he won the silver medal in Los Angeles. He would qualify for his fourth and final Olympic team in 1988, finishing fifth in Seoul. Four years after his spree of world records, Wilkins established his final personal best in 1980, 232-10.
John Powell seemed to take the last round dramatics in stride, suggesting, “I’m not that disappointed. It just fell a little short, that’s all.” But then adopting his characteristic candor and realism, he continued, “Am I pleased? I didn’t win, did I? You’re a fool if you think winning isn’t everything.”
Powell would finish second at the 1980 Olympic Trials for the boycotted Moscow Games. He would win the Olympic Trials in 1984 and then capture his second bronze medal at the Los Angeles Games. In his final major competition, at the age of forty, he finished second at the 1987 World Championships in Rome. Nine years after setting the world record in 1975, Powell established his last personal best with a throw of 233-9. Though his arch-rival Mac Wilkins had won an Olympic title and a silver medal and broken four world records, all compared to Powell’s two bronze medals and one world record, it is perhaps significant that in this super-charged rivalry, John Powell actually completed his career with the longer personal best throw.
“Bad Boy” of the 1976 US Olympic Team
To suggest that the discus throw is one of the less glamorous events in the Olympics would be an understatement, and as a result, journalists through the years have often sought a human interest story or a scandal or some other angle to increase its appeal to their readers. With the bear hug he gave to Wolfgang Schmidt, Mac Wilkins provided that angle.
But Wilkins had already laid the groundwork for becoming the “bad boy” of the 1976 US Olympic team before the discus competition had even begun. Still irritated by his treatment by USOC officials, coupled with what he perceived as a long-term lack of support for amateur athletes in the United States, and armed with his status as world record-holder and Olympic favorite, Wilkins had openly shared his thoughts about the status of American track and field athletes. In comments that gained much wider notoriety than originally anticipated, he offered observations that many considered incendiary. “I would like to see East Germany win all the medals—maybe that would shake up our people a bit,” he proclaimed with his tongue only partially in cheek. Further ingratiating himself with folks back home, he continued, “The East Germans don’t want a bunch of out-of-shape slobs walking around, so they get everybody interested in athletics of some kind. Americans prefer to sit in front of their TV and watch the pros play. Watching pro football doesn’t develop healthy bodies.” He then made it clear that his achievement had been a victory for himself rather than for his country.
Explaining his comments later, he suggested, “What we (US governing bodies) were doing was a travesty. East Germany and many other countries, including some in the West, support their athletes. Our athletes aren’t getting any support at all from the Olympic people . . . All I got from the Olympic officials was an airline ticket and a uniform. They didn’t support me. They didn’t help me. I got to the Olympics on my own.”
Regarding his motivation for making what some viewed as ungrateful and unpatriotic comments, he explained, “. . . my intention was to shake up people back home, to realize things here in Montreal didn’t run smoothly and that the athletes were caught up in a bureaucracy at a time their minds should have been free to concentrate on athletics, not USOC bungling.”
Not unexpected was the official response to Wilkins’ assertions. In a blunt rejoinder, USOC President Phil Krumm suggested, “. . . without Olympic funds and help, he (Wilkins) would not be here and have that medal” and that the attitude being exhibited was “like hating your parents.” He further called the gold medalist a “grandstander and a pop-off.” This latter comment in particular led Wilkins’ proud father, Dick to respond, bluntly offering, “This kind of guttersnipe language and lack of maturity vindicates Mac’s position and what he’s trying to say about the USOC.”
And then came the bear hug of Wolfgang Schmidt just after the East German had surpassed Wilkins’ teammate and fellow American to win the silver medal.
By the mid-1970s, track and field was declining in popularity in the United States as other activities increasingly consumed the attention of the American people. But every four years, many Americans became track fans as they watched their compatriots battle against competitors from other nations in intriguing competitions. American spectators wanted to see their Olympians defeat their adversaries, especially when those other athletes were from Eastern Bloc nations like the Soviet Union and East Germany.
As a result, when Wilkins hugged Wolfgang Schmidt after his silver medal-winning throw that in the process knocked John Powell down a notch to the bronze, many Americans responded negatively. For those knowledgeable enough to be familiar with the intense and often vocal Wilkins-Powell rivalry, some assumed the gesture resulted from Wilkins’ dislike of the man whose world record he had broken, and thus was an inappropriate expression of disrespect for his American teammate. But for other more casual fans, Wilkins had been downright un-American when he gave a congratulatory hug to a communist for defeating a fellow American. Though Wilkins seemed to largely take these criticisms in stride, in the immediate aftermath he was pressed to defend his actions. As he explained shortly after the event, “A lot of people called it unpatriotic when I picked him up after his throw. An affront to Powell. It’s funny, but nobody ever asked me if I picked him up and was happy because it was a way of showing that I was relieved that he didn’t beat me.”
Reflecting on this impromptu moment several years later, Wilkins offered a different perspective. “I went over and picked Schmidt up and gave him a big hug, and guess what? Everybody around there thought I had insulted Powell, my fellow countryman. John Powell was not my friend, but Wolfgang was. I wasn’t looking at what country Schmidt was from: I was just looking at the terrific performance he had made, coming through on his last throw like that to take a silver medal.”
While Wilkins was pummeled by many in the media for his comments, and though he would receive hate mail for some time after the Games, some of his teammates quickly came to his defense. One such teammate was Maren Seidler, the dominant American women’s shot putter of the time, who questioned the veracity of the criticism of Wilkins’ gesture toward his East German rival. “It was one of those rare times when the Olympics did what they were advertised to do,” she offered. “A guy’s respect for another guy’s come-through effort transcended nationality and ideology. And what happened? People were offended by it. Offended?”
Though Wilkins expressed no remorse for his comments at Montreal or his embrace of Wolfgang Schmidt, at a time when amateurism in the Olympic movement was starting to be relaxed, he paid financially for those actions. As with the criticism he received, Wilkins took all of this in stride as well, content to drive around the Bay Area in an old Volkswagen he had purchased for $600. Further putting his Montreal experience in perspective, he later reflected, “. . . the throwing events get little media attention anyway, unless, of course, there’s a big, hairy bearded guy saying unpleasant things to people and throwing world records at the same time.”
The Tragedy of Wolfgang Schmidt
If Mac Wilkins paid a price for hugging an East German rival, that was nothing compared to what Wolfgang Schmidt would ultimately pay. As his father Ernst had warned him, his association with Westerners, and Americans in particular, would draw great scrutiny from the communist authorities tasked with controlling him. As he described that final round throw that moved him from third to second, “I was so happy. I lifted my arms to the crowd. And then, suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mac coming toward me, a big grin shining through his beard. He was happy I hadn’t beat him and he was maybe even happier that I had beat John Powell . . . Without warning, he embraced me and raised me up high off my feet and held me there.” Then switching to the potential impact of this impromptu event on his status as an East German athlete, he continued, “After what seemed a lifetime, he let me down and I thought, Good God, what are the watchdogs thinking? I congratulated him rather quickly and walked away in order not to prolong the situation.”
For a vaunted East German athlete to share a display of affection with an American champion, particularly on international television, was an indefensible offense in the eyes of a repressive regime. But the tolerance of East German officials for what they considered inappropriate contact, within limits, continued as long as the athlete in question was performing at a high level, winning, and bringing glory to the GDR. And Wolfgang Schmidt was doing just that. From 1975 to 1981, according to the definitive annual rankings of Track and Field News, Schmidt was ranked as either the first- or second-best men’s discus thrower in the world, receiving the top ranking in 1975, 1977, 1978, and 1979. In 1978 he added nearly a foot to Wilkins’ world record, increasing the mark to 233-5. In the years following the Montreal Games, Wolfgang Schmidt dominated the discus event.
His status, and the tolerance by GDR officials of what they considered his inappropriate behaviors, began to change after the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
With the United States and other Western nations boycotting these Games in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, most of the top throwers in the world would not be competing. As a result, Schmidt was heavily favored to add a gold medal to his silver from four years earlier. But despite the consistently high level of throwing he brought to the competition, Schmidt simply lacked enthusiasm heading into an Olympics he was heavily favored to win. As he explained years later, “With so many good men missing, I could never make myself believe the Olympics in Moscow were really the Olympics. So even if I had won the gold medal in Moscow, I would never have considered myself a true Olympic champion.”
In the actual competition, Schmidt fell victim to a combination of his lack of motivation, incessant whistling (equivalent to booing) from the Soviet crowd, and corrupt Soviet officials administering the event, though there is no evidence that he was impacted directly by unscrupulous officiating. (The gold medal went to a previously unheralded Russian athlete, though informed observers indicated that the bronze medalist, Cuban thrower Luis Delis, had a winning throw deliberately mismarked by the Soviet officials administering the event.)
Schmidt had a long first-round foul and then briefly took the lead in the third round. He failed to improve in the fourth round, twisted his ankle in the fifth round, and intentionally fouled on his sixth and final attempt that traveled less than 140 feet. The world record holder, the dominant discus thrower in the world, had finished fourth and out of the medals. After his final throw, the crowd erupted with derisive whistling and laughter. Infuriated, Schmidt shook his fist at the jeering Soviets and yelled, “You stupid pigs! You assholes.” Though his outburst was very brief, it had occurred in Moscow, viewed as the mecca of the communist world. He had failed to win a medal, much less the gold medal, which was by itself a serious offense. To follow that performance with a tantrum against the Soviet fans could not be overlooked. As a result, the end of his competitive career in the GDR was on the horizon.
The following year, though he still held the world record and at twenty-seven was in the prime of his competitive years, Wolfgang Schmidt was informed by East German sports officials that he had been “retired.” With this new status, he was allowed to continue to train but not compete. Then in July of 1982, he was arrested, allegedly for traffic violations but actually in response to the string of infractions culminating in his performance and misbehavior two years earlier in Moscow. He was held for ten days in a secluded villa near East Berlin and incessantly questioned by representatives of the Ministry of State Security, commonly known as Stasi and widely feared and hated by the people of the GDR.
Under the pressure of Stasi questioning, Schmidt’s years of frustration came bubbling to the surface. When a Stasi interrogator asked him, “What the hell is the matter with you?” he countered with a dangerous level of candor in that setting. “Goddammit, I want out of this country. I want to throw the discus. If I can’t do it here, then somewhere else. I am an athlete. I want to compete. Let me leave.” Though Stasi didn’t necessarily need real evidence to convict Schmidt, he had provided it to them; the world record-holder had admitted his guilt of the crime of wanting to defect from the GDR.
Schmidt was eventually transported to a prison, though it was four months before he was even granted a hearing. He would eventually be convicted of more than thirty trumped-up charges and sentenced to eighteen months in prison. After serving fifteen of those months, which included physical beatings at the hands of prison guards and two stints in solitary confinement, he was granted a pardon. For the next four years, he was no longer incarcerated, at least in a literal sense, but was also not allowed to train for or compete in the discus. To much of the sporting world, though still the holder of the world record until 1983, Wolfgang Schmidt was largely a forgotten man.
But he had not been forgotten by some of his friends and rivals, most notably Mac Wilkins. Wilkins and Al Feuerbach lived in a secluded mountainside cabin near San Jose and starting in 1979 they invited their friends, rivals, and event legends to their home for what they called the Two Big Guys Mountain Games. Due to space limitations, the discus throw was held at a local high school but the shot putters competed from a ring the two throwers had constructed adjacent to their home. For those invited to the latter competition, given the revelry that inevitably followed, it was a highlight of their social if not competitive seasons.
The 1982 version of Two Big Guys was to be the last and Wilkins and Feuerbach decided it would be fitting to invite Schmidt. The invitation somehow found its way to the now-disfavored athlete who responded to his friend. On the response card he checked the “yes” box but on the back wrote: “But I can NOT. I can never start all over. Never. No more sport for me in GDR. Please help me.” He knew Schmidt had vanished from the track and field world and now realized his friend was in trouble though he knew none of the details Still, Wilkins would hear nothing more about Schmidt’s plight for more than three years.
Mac Wilkins did what he could to keep Schmidt’s name and fate from fading from memory. He developed videos offering technical and training instruction in various track and field events, most notably a version detailing discus technique. At the beginning of the video was a clip of Schmidt throwing the discus with the following words superimposed on the video: “Dedicated to Wolfgang Schmidt, former world record holder, and, since 1981, a political prisoner in his native East Germany.”
In late 1988, Schmidt was finally granted permission to leave the GDR. He traveled to Hamburg, West Germany, where he lived with relatives. At this point, he and Mac Wilkins had seen each other a total of eleven times, ten of which were in their competitions, and all were before 1981 when the East German vanished from the sporting world. But an unlikely bond had formed between the two athletes, and from Hamburg, Schmidt called his American counterpart. Three weeks later, Wilkins flew to West Germany to support this man whose life had been so tragically altered. As he flew to Europe, the American was unsure of what to expect when he got there. “I wasn’t sure who this guy was,” Wilkins reflected. “I really didn’t know him.” But they both knew the discus, and shortly after he arrived the two throwers went to a nearby field and, on a drizzly and cold early winter German afternoon, threw the discus time after time for over two hours. Early the next year Schmidt traveled to San Jose where, now as a free man, he trained with Wilkins, Powell, and several of the other top throwers in the world. Though many years delayed, it was what Wolfgang Schmidt had been seeking all along.
Though he was not able to again reach the performance levels he had exhibited before his forced retirement, Schmidt returned to international competition, representing West Germany and then the unified Germany. But there would be no more Olympics for Wolfgang Schmidt. Impacted by East German politics and boycotts, he had been deprived of what should have been his best Olympic opportunity in 1984 when he was 30, a prime age for a discus thrower. A new West German citizen, he was disallowed from competing in Seoul in 1988 due to a combination of citizenship transfer rules and opposition from East German authorities. Though competing at a high level, four years later he was not included on the German team for the 1992 Games in Barcelona. With his silver medal from 1976 in Montreal, Wolfgang Schmidt’s Olympic quest had come to an end, his championship potential tragically untapped.
Schmidt eventually emigrated to the United States, became a stockbroker, and moved to San Francisco before eventually settling in Florida. He and Mac Wilkins remain good friends.
Afterward
As his competitive career wound down, John Powell began to transition into coaching the throwing events. He served for a time as the throws coach at Stanford University, working with collegiate athletes and other top throwers as he continued to train for some of the final competitions of his stellar career. Among the post-collegiate athletes he trained was Carol Cady, who he coached to an American record in the discus that was not broken for over two decades, and Augie Wolf, the former Princeton shot putter who had finished fourth at the 1984 Olympics. As he had as a policeman and as a thrower, Powell brought some old-school approaches to his coaching, particularly in how he interacted with elite athletes. He pushed hard, was not afraid to create conflict, and forced throwers to struggle as a means to promote improvement. As he suggested to one of his top athletes, “Remember, when our wills come into conflict, mine wins.”
In 1985, Powell began offering instructional videotapes of the throwing events. In time he moved to Las Vegas, where he occasionally worked with athletes at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas. In addition to producing and selling instructional DVDs, Powell has regularly offered throwing camps around the country.
On his website, the former world record-holder’s biography suggested that he was, “Considered the finest technician ever in the history of the discus event. . . No one is more effective in the ring than Powell.” Though some of his contemporaries might quarrel with such assertions, a case could be reasonably made that would support such a claim. Smaller in size than most of his rivals, now over thirty years after retiring from competition John Powell remains the second-longest American men’s discus thrower. And as he might want to stress, he did so efficiently and with a linear style.
Though the transition was not as immediate as with his rival, Mac Wilkins’ passion for the discus eventually led him to coaching as well. In 2006 he became an assistant track and field coach at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. In his eight years in that position, he helped turn that small NAIA college into a track and field powerhouse, with his athletes winning twenty-four individual national championships. A highlight of his lasting legacy in Portland was the creation of the Concordia Throws Center which opened in 2008 and remains one of the finest facilities in the nation devoted to the development of throwers. From this state-of-the-art facility, in addition to his responsibilities with the university, he operated the Mac Wilkins Throwers Academy to facilitate the training of throwers of all levels, including the world-class discus throwers he coached.
Then in 2013, at an age (sixty-two) when most are winding down their careers, Wilkins accepted the position of throws coach at the USA Track and Field High Performance Training Center in Chula Vista, California, just outside of San Diego. In addition to the stellar year-round weather in Southern California, particularly as compared to rainy Portland, he relished the opportunity to work with some of the nation’s top athletes. “There are a lot of reasons for satisfaction . . . a lot of areas where I wish I could influence things even greater. There’s a lot of potential here to develop the sport and the throwing events. It’s an amazing resource.” It is perhaps no small irony that the former radical, anti-establishment, self-coached athlete had become one of the top coaches in the country.
But the passion he found in working with athletes may have helped Mac Wilkins transition from his competitive career as an athlete known for his intensity. “The great thing is, I still feel the same emotions and the same excitement now as I did when I was competing,” he reflected. “I have to express them and manage them differently being a coach—and at times, more of a counselor—but it’s still the same intensity.”
What had decreased in intensity was the rivalry between John Powell and Mac Wilkins. As late as 1988, as each of their throwing careers was winding down and as writers still thought of them as two parts of an intense rivalry, Wilkins suggested, “Don’t pair us up. I don’t consider John to be my peer as a thrower.”
But time and maturity and distance served to tamp down the open animosity that had characterized their many years of being at the top of American men’s discus throwing. While there was evidence that they still didn’t care much for each other, Wilkins and Powell had largely moved on.
While it lasted, though, combined with the tremendous talent, dedication, and longevity each brought to the event, that intense rivalry had contributed to their utter dominance of American discus throwing. In the 16 years between 1973 and 1988, either John Powell or Mac Wilkins won all but two national titles in the men’s discus, with just one American (Ben Plucknett) as well as a Cuban athlete (Luis Delis) winning championships during this time period. Of the 14 championships won between them, Wilkins and Powell each won seven titles. In each Olympics between 1972 and 1988 (including the 1980 boycott year when Wilkins would have been favored to win), either Wilkins or Powell or both was in contention for a medal. Since 1984, when Mac Wilkins won a silver medal, no American has won an Olympic medal in the men’s discus.
At the height of their rivalry in the late 1970s, their battles were intense, riveting, occasionally comical, and a boost to an event that was otherwise losing much of the interest of American fans. And a by-product was some of the greatest performances in the history of the discus event.
Update
On August 19, 2022, John Powell passed away at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada following a long illness. He was seventy-five.
References
Carlson, Lewis H. and Fogarty, John J., Tales of Gold, Chicago, Contemporary Books, 1987
Eggers, Kerry “Multiple Mac’ Wilkins Stays on Career Track,” Portland Tribune, June 16, 2016
Hersh, Phil, “Trying to Throw Off the Past,” Chicago Tribune, March 28, 1988
Hill, Garry, “Mac Wilkins: T &FN Interview,” Track and Field News, February 1977
Hill, Garry, “What Did Mac MEAN?” Track and Field News, September 1976
Hill, Garry, “Wilkins Ends It a Day Early,” Track and Field News, September 1976
Johnson, William O., Verschoth, Anita, and Schmidt, Wolfgang, Thrown Free, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991
“Meet Your Coaches,” johnpowellassociates.com
Moore, Kenny, “The Old Men and the Discus,” Sports Illustrated, July 25, 1988
“The Old Order Changeth,” Track and Field News, August 1976
Trucks, Rob, “What the Discus Can Teach You About Life: Lessons From One of America’s Greatest Throwers,” August 7, 2012, downloaded from Deadspin.com
Willman, Howard, “T & FN Interview – John Powell,” Track and Field News, December 1984
“World Scene,” Track and Field News, July 1976
