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Thursday 4 March 2010

Speedendurance.com

Obituaries: Olympic Medalist Paul Drayton 1939-2010

Posted: 03 Mar 2010 07:15 AM PST

Paul Drayton of the USA won a silver medal in the 200m plus a gold medal in 4×100 meter relay at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He died on March 2, 2010.

In the 200 meter video below (in Italian), you can see him beating 1960 Olympic winner Livio Berruti of Italy (in sunglasses in Lane 1). Henry Carr of the USA won the gold in 20.3 seconds.

That 4×100m relay team will be forever remembered with "Bullet" Bob Hayes 8.5 second anchor relay leg at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Drayton led off the relay team and improved the 400 world record to 39.0. Second leg was Gerald Ashworth, followed by Richard Stebbins.

Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes".

Afterwards, Drayton replied in the famous punch line, "All you need is Bob Hayes".

If you are going to buy an Olympic History DVD, my first choice is Bud Greenspan.

My second choice is the official documentary of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics – Tokyo Olympiad – Criterion Collection by Kon Ichikawa.

Why? Because there are no interviews and practically no dialog in this documentary. It’s about capturing the emotions and heartbreaks of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. For the camera person or aspiring firm director, it’s about proper use of lighting, angles, and zoom.

The DVD is over 2.5 hours long, but if you are a cheap bastard and look hard enough, you can find all the parts on YouTube.

Here is the 4×100m Relay video on YouTube.