Moscow Marvel

The Soviet band did the best it could with the awkward, unfamiliar strains of The Star-Spangled Banner. As it played, the sellout crowd in the Green Theater of the Gorky Park of Rest and Culture cheered, and the U.S. diplomatic corps stood bareheaded in the rain. It was clear that the bulge-muscled Americans, gathered in Moscow to bandy bar bells with the burliest Russians around, were as popular a bunch of visiting athletes as had competed in Russia in many a moon.

The first Russo-American athletic contest since the end of World War II gave six U.S. musclemen of assorted sizes a chance to flex their biceps for a friendly and admiring audience. Appropriately enough, it was Heavyweight Paul Anderson who made the biggest hit. The 22-year-old titan from Toccoa. Ga. looked for all the world like a living caricature of Humphrey Pennyworth, the comic-strip strongman. Here in the flesh was the giant of a capitalist fairy tale. Almost as wide as he is high (5 ft. 10 in., 340 Ibs.), Anderson toyed with the big bar bells and set two world records in the process. "We rarely have such weights lifted," said the solemn Russian announcer as Anderson hoisted 402.41 Ibs. in the two-hand press. The crowd was still goggle-eyed when Paul handled a phe nomenal 425.565 Ibs. in the clean and jerk.

Team competition, as American scorers saw it, wound up in a 9-9 tie. But the U.S. had neglected to send a featherweight competitor, and the Russians, certain they were entitled to the featherweight points, claimed an 11-9 victory. The argument was incidental. Everyone was talking about Anderson. He had grown too monstrous to make much of a showing in "Mr. America" contests, but to Muscovites, who no longer differentiate between amateur and professional, athlete and show man, Paul Anderson was chudo prirody (a wonder of nature). He was indeed.

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