Water Boy

Among the bronzed, broad-shouldered young men who turned up for the National A.A.U. swimming championships in Seattle last week, slender, mild-mannered John Birnie Marshall was easy to overlook. But there was no missing Australian-born John Marshall when he uncoiled for the mile race. For 20 minutes, the biggest splash in U.S. swimming since Johnny Weissmuller had spectators, officials and competitors watching hardly anybody else.

Churning through the water with the ease of a porpoise, Marshall soon left most of the others well behind. Lap after lap, over the 55-yd. pool, he kept reaching for the water, hand open and fingers outstretched like a man gracefully reaching for a cup of tea. As the minutes ticked by, it became apparent that Marshall was also reaching for some new records.

As his hand slapped the end of the pool at the finish of the mile race, the timers' watches clicked to a stop at 20:08⅗, almost 20 seconds better than the listed world mark set by Hawaii's Keo Nakama in 1942.* For Marshall, who holds seven world records for distances from 200 meters to a mile, it was also a small disappointment. Earlier this month he had churned a mile in 19:49⅖.

As a three-year-old paddling around the salty Swan River near Perth, Australia, Marshall showed an early liking for water, has made it a second home ever since. In 1946, at the age of 16, he perfected his stroke under ace Australian Coach Tom Donnet. In the 1948 Olympics in London, Marshall placed second in the 1,500-meter event. It was at that point that the 152-Ib. youngster met famed Yale Swimming Coach Bob Kiphuth, decided to go to

Yale. Kiphuth let Marshall's strokes alone, concentrated on teaching him a few training tricks. Calisthenics built him up by an additional 20 in Only Japan's Hironoshin Furuhashi, who holds world records at 800 and 1,500 meters (TIME, Aug. 29), seems to be a match for Marshall. If his present plans go through, Marshall will get his chance at Furuhashi in an international meet in Tokyo next month. This time, Marshall will be swimming for Australia instead of Yale.

*Along the route, Marshall left four other American records in his wake: 6:02.9 for 550 yds., 11:16.1 for 1,000 yds., 12:22.2 for 1,000 meters, and 15:01.2 for 1,320 yds.

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