In 1948, Gene Cole set a national high school record in 440 yards. He did not compete again until 1952 for Ohio State, where he placed fifth in the national AAU, which qualified him for the Olympic Tryouts. There, placing second, he joined the Olympic team heading for Helsinki. In his semi-final heat, Cole came in fourth, eliminating him from the finals. In the 4×400-meter relay, the Americans placed second behind Jamaica for Gene Cole’s silver Olympic medal. The top three teams, Jamaica, United States, and Germany beat the previous record for this event.
After the Olympica on August 4, 1952, at White City Stadium in London, Cole and Thane Baker ran on a 4×440 yard relay with Meredith Gourdine and J.W. Mashburn against Jamaica and other teams. The pouring rain made the cinder track miserable. Some of the officials huddled under the stands. The gold-medal Jamaican team won in a meet and national record time with the Americans in second place.
Gene Cole, Thane Baker, and seven other U.S. track and field Olympians went to Vienna with Ohio State coach, Larry Snyder, to compete. On August 7, the last event was the Schwedenstaffel für Männer or Swedish relay. Bill Miller, javelin thrower, dashed the 100-meter leg. Thane sprinted the 200, his event in the 1952 Olympics. Gene Cole claimed the 300-meter length, and Roland Blackmon, a 400-meter hurdler, ran the 400. Their baton handoffs may not have been the smoothest, but everybody had a great time. The American relay team won.
Back in London at the British Games sponsored by News of the World on August 9 just before two o’clock on another rainy day, Gene Cole joined Mal Whitfield and Herb McKenley in an invitational 440-yard race at White City Stadium, home of the 1908 Olympics. Between them, they possessed ten Olympic medals.
At five in the evening, the starter shot his gun for the United States and Jamaica to replay their Olympic relay of two weeks earlier. Gene Cole ran the leadoff leg on the 4×440-yard relay against Arthur Wint of Jamaica, who possessed gold and silver medals in the 400 meters, 800 meters, and 4×400 meters from 1948 and 1952. Cole handed off to J.W. Mashburn a little bit ahead of Wint’s handoff to Jamaica’s Les Laing, who had placed fifth in the 1952 Olympic 200 meters. Mashburn finished ahead of Laing on the wet track. For the third leg, the United States had Reggie Pearman, an 800-meter runner who did not make the Olympic finals, and George Rhoden, the 1952 400-meter Olympic gold medalist, carried the baton for Jamaica. Pearman passed the baton to Mal Whitfield, the two-time 800-meter gold medalist from 1948 and 1952, a yard ahead of Rhoden, who gave the stick to Herb McKenley, a previous world record holder in both the 400 meters and 440 yards. With one hundred meters to go, McKenley caught up with Whitfield, but Whitfield held him off for the win.
Surprisingly, the United States relay team of Cole, Mashburn, Pearman, and Whitfield broke an eleven-year-old world record in the 4×440 yards on that rain-soaked track.
Asa S. Bushnell, ed., United States 1952 Olympic Book, Quadrennial Report United States Olympic Committee: Games of the XVth Olympiad Helsinki, Finland July 19 to August 3, 1952, VI Olympic Winter Games Oslo, Norway February 14 to 25, 1952, 1st Pan American Games Buenos Aires, Argentina February 25 to March 8, 1951, (New York: United States Olympic Association, 1953), 91-92; Olympedia, s.v. Gene Cole, accessed March 9, 2024, https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/78244; “Gene Cole,” Lancaster Eagle Gazette, January 18, 2018, https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/lancastereaglegazette/name/gene-cole-obituary?id=23398382&fhid=8677; “Gerrard Eugene Cole Biography,“ International Olympic Committee, accessed March 9, 2024, https://olympics.com/en/athletes/gerrard-eugene-cole; News of the World, “Post-Olympic British Games: White City Stadium Saturday 9th August, 1952,” (program, London: News of the World, 1952), private collection, 12, 22, 24, 27-28; “British Games at the White City,” Athletics, Observer (London, England), August 10, 1952, https://www.newspapers.com; Saturday Sport Round-Up, “Remigino Wins,” Evening Standard (London), August 9, 1952, https://www.newspapers.com; “Moore Skims to Record in Mud,” Sunday Pictorial (London), August 10, 1952.
