SI Vault
January 11, 1971
Question: What do they do in Denmark besides produce X-rated movies?
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January 11, 1971


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Answer: Well, how about The Round Tower in Copenhagen? No steps, but there is this swell circular ramp inside, 209 meters to the top. About the last time anybody had any real fun there was in the 1700s when Czar Peter the Great of Russia made it up the tower on horseback. Last weekend two Danish sports, Ole Ritter and Leif Mortensen, who are pro bicyclists, raced up on their two-wheelers. Ritter got there first, in 55.3 seconds, 7.7 seconds ahead of Mortensen. True, it's a small thing. But it's also the cleanest show in town.

This week's Hip, Hip, Hooray Cheer goes to—

Lord Burghley, the Marquess of Exeter. In the years after he won the 1928 Olympic 400-meter hurdles he suffered from a hip that went out of joint. In 1960 the pesky thing was replaced with a noncorroding Vitallium number, and more recently that one was exchanged for a newer model. Which brings us up to date: once the joint was out of his hip, the marquess figured that he had to do something appropriate with it. And that's why the thing is now mounted on the hood of his Rolls-Royce as a sort of radiator ornament, nicely done up with an owl's head on top, a crest at the middle and bearing the inscription: "A DEVOTED SUPPORTER, 1960-1970."

A special sporting salute to Washington's Senator Warren G. Magnuson, who smokes fat, Churchillian cigars and expresses cool disdain for physical exercise. Ticking off the names of several fellow lawmakers who are physical-fitness nuts, Magnuson snorted, "Look at them. Every one of them is bald."

Meanwhile, out on the capital cocktail-party circuit, the guests always gather around Wisconsin's Senator Gaylord Nelson. Word is out that the legislator can rip a telephone book in half with his bare hands, the sort of really nifty stunt that will liven any party. In fact, the Senator points out that there is a bar back in Milwaukee that still has a framed display of the two halves of a phone book he tore apart when he was campaigning for governor in 1962. Can't remember the name of the bar. But it's on the south side.

But enough of such vigor, and back to Senator Magnuson's kind of athlete. For many years FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover has made no secret of the fact that he is a horseplayer. He also has carefully cultivated the public image that he observes the rules of thrift and prudence while following his hobby: always places his bets at the $2 window. Now, according to Washington Columnist Jack Anderson, who has been watching, the secret is out: Hoover secretly sends bets by a messenger to the $100 window. And a sporting salute to you, Mr. Hoover.

Saddest sport story of the week:

In Johannesburg, Peter Kriel curled right up in the cage to break the world record for sleeping with poisonous snakes, a mark currently held by another South African, Jack Seal.

Peter got into the cage on Christmas Eve and planned to stay until Jan. 24. But after three days and three nights he climbed back out again, exhaus ed and pretty grouchy about the whole thing. The snakes were too restless and mean, he said. The breaking point came when he was lying there, peacefully trying to read, and a deadly mamba struck at him—sinking its fangs right into the cover of the book. Mamba mia, that'sa some spicy story.

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