NOTES BY AMATEUR

Otago Witness, Issue 2722, 16 May 1906, Page 57

NOTES BY AMATEUR

The suggestion made by the secretary of the Dunedin Harriers that secretaries of all athletic clubs in Otago should forward their names and addresses in order that a ' complete list might be made up has not met with the success it deserved. Only ' three gentlemen have up to the present - responded to the suggestion. It is to be hoped that the appeal will not go unheeded this week.

The secretary of the St. Andrew Harriers--Club advises that -word has been received , that the Balclutha Harriers intend visiting Dunedin on June 4, the 'date -set- aside for the run with the St. Andrew Harriers. The lattei club, by the way, purposes holding its first handicap race at St. Claii ' on'Wedneeday, May 23. The club has now a membership of 40, and anticipates holding its own in inter-club races. Speaking at the meeting of the Otago - Centre the other evenin.g Mr Lanc r , the treasurer of that association, in bringing up the matter of schools championship meeting, paid the Schools Athletic Association in Canterbury a compliment when he stated ihat that association was responsible for the successful issue of the schools championship meetings in Chrisfcohurch. "Not until a schools athletic association is formed here can we hope to run school champion-f-hips as successfully as they are run ,in Christchurch," said Mr Lang. The statement of the treasurer is full of reasoning, and it is with pleasure I note that a committee has been formed to wait on the teacher 3 with a view of forming a schools * association.

The printer thought he knew better:" wherefor we find that Mr A. Connor, and not Mr A. Cannon (as should be), hat been appointed delegate for the Union Harriers. (Invercargill) on the Otago Centre. This correction! is made in justice to Mr Cannon.

The Otago Centre, following the example of Wellington, has set its face- against any proposed reciprocity with the recently-, formed New Zealand Athletic Union. * Thif decision was arrived at with _ som«.j; haste at a special meeting on Friday eveni ing. A previous meeting had passed whatto the writer's mind w-as a sensible resolu-, tion in deciding to wait proposals from .the, council before coming to a definite dcci- ", sion on the matter. The Otago Centre and(j the Wellington body, in their commendable' efforts to protect amateurism, have ' notk quite grasped the true position of affairs. There can be no question of affiliation,' amalgamation, or alliance with the professional body (tihe writer would stronghi oppose any such proposal), but I see r.«|

-fane reason why, if the New Zealand Athletic Union intends to purify professional sport, why the two bodies should not work in harmony in so far as recognising each other in the matter of disqualifications. An arrangement of this sort, so far from being detrimental to the interests of amateurism, would make for the promotion of

the sport. When -the question of the balance sheet of the Tecent New Zealand championship •was raised at the meeting of -the Otago Centre, it Tvas ascerfaained that no balance sheet had been prepared. The treasurer explained that owing to several entry fees being still unpaid and tickets outstanding, he had not been able to prepare a true and proper statement, nor could he do «> until such -time as the matters mentioned were settled. The explanation, so far as the secretary was concerned, was deemed satisfactory, but the meeting criticised in no -uncertain terms the actions of those athletes who were still due their entry fees. - 'As to outstanding tickets, it was ascertained that these were held by one individual who was at present out of town on business. The chairman suggested that a< sixpenny wire be cent urging him to settle up over the tickets without further delay. But the matter should never have "been allowed to get to the sixpenny-wire stage. It should be possible to account for tickets immediately on the conclusion of ihe -sports, and as for - unpaid entry fees, is *i£ not l&aaV -down in the rules that no competitor is allowed to- take part in championship events until his sentry fees have been .paid?. iSus rule is more often honoured in the breach than the observance, and it does not apply to Dunedin alone. The V.M.C.A. Harriers on Saturday last ■were treated to a run of slightly more than the average in length, the distance being xongbty estimated to be about 12 miles. ' The starting point of the run was George Street School, and the trail covered some really excellent harrier country, and also some which was otherwise. At the conclusion of the run one member gravely gave notice of motion that in future the distance be limited to 17 miles ! Tfie small boy is turning his attention to other matters besides barracking for his favourite team on the football field. With the growth of harrierism. there has arisen for bin a new _ pastime. Jt has now become one of his chfef doiighte on Saturday afternoons, in the interval between the passage of the hares and the pack, to gather up the paper, witn industry, worthy of a better cause, and iay a faiso trail in an opposite direction. Upon the arrival of the pack, they are told ; " They went down here, mister. They're just round j the corner." Then the pack, unversed in the wiles of boy nature, trustfully follows the false scent. Very shortly, however, ! they return, sadder but wiser men, and the joy of the small boy is complete. This has occurred +0 several of our leading dubs lately, and it behoves harriers to regard , with suspicion any advice tendered by the small boy. I Athletic enthusiasts must have smiled incredulously when they read in the cables 1 that B. French had won- the Quarter-mile Championship of New South Wales in Syd- j ney the other day in 42 4-ssec. ] The time is so obviously incorrect .that it cannot be taken - seriously. The cable man, and not the wateh-holdere, has made a mistake. It will probably be found that the correct time is 52 4-sgec. The event was run off at ' the University sports meeting. By his win French has taken away the quarter-mile championship title from G. A. Widmer, who was last yeaf s holder. Widmer will be remembered as having toured New Zealand with Shrubb and Dufley a couple of seasons ago. The harrier season was opened in Melbourne en Saturday, April 28, when a combined run of the various harrier clubs brought together 202 runners, the best turnout for 10 years. While such interest is j being taken in this, the cleanest of amateur i sport, amateur athletics is in for a long life. The English mail to hand brings particulars of the athletic contest between Oxford and Cambridge. On the morning of the sports the ground was covered in snow. The track was cleared of its white mantle, but rain descended -when the first event was 1 about to be decided, and continued through- ' out the day. Altogether the conditions jould not have been worse. Oxford won by leven events to three. The 100 yards event went to Cambridge, the race being won by K. G. Miiecd, in time registered as 10 3-ssec. Cornwallis. of Oxford, won the i Quarter in 51sec, and the Half in lmin ! 56 2-ssec. Considering the state the track j must have "haen in this is a fine performance. A. R. Welsh, of Cambridge, won the Mile in~4min 21 l-ssec — another splendid perform - - ance.. Last year Henderson-Hamilton won the event in Arnin 17 4-ssec. The Long Jump -was . annexed- iy P. M. Young, of Oxford, -with an effort of 22ft 3in. The -same athlete won the High Jump, clearing sft 7iin. Hussey, of Oxford, eecured the 120 Yards Hurdles in time registered as 16£ sec. The Putting-the-^Weight went to -Honl G. "W. Lyttelton of Cambridge, byputting the missile 38ft 32in. In an exhibition put he did 38ft llin. A. F. Fyffe, of Oxford, won the Hammer event, with a throw of 136 ft 3in. The Three-mile Flat ■ was won by Hallowes, of Oxford, in Ismin Msec. The contest has been won on 20 occasions by Oxford, ..nd 21 by Cambridge. The Southland harriers did not favour the idea of holding the proposed InterprovJncial Cross-country Championship at Balclutha on .Tune 4, and. through ilr A. Paape, advised the OtaEfo Centre to this effect, suggesting that tho race should be held at Wi>->ga,tui on May 24. At its meeting on Friday the Otago Centre considered the suggestion, and decided to fall in with the views of harriers iv Southland. There was some little opposition to the chance in the date owing, as was explained, that May 24 was not a general holiday, and there would be some difficulty for all intending competitors to not away. It is reported that at a sports m-oetinsr in the North Island at Easter, W. H. Madill. the New Zealand champion, threw the 161b hammer 158 ft lin. This throw eclipses that of P. Bvrne. who, at Kalgoorlie recently, did 157 ft lOin from a 9ft circle. It isu understood Madill intends applying to have his performance recognised as an Australasian record. The 10-mile Tunning championship of Scotland, decided a few days before the mail left, was won by T. -Tack, of the Edinburgh Harriers, who defeated last year's winner (S. Stevenson) by 15 yards in 54min 12 4-seec. The Victorian long-distance runner George Blake, who competed unsuccessfully in the Marathon Road Race at the recent Olympian Games, .vriting to a friend in Melbourne before the games commenced, stated that he was sick ail thft w*y ffom Alexandria

to Athens, and could not train for some days after arrival. He mentions having witnessed the finish of the trial Greek Marathon. The competitors were much distressed. The winner finished in 3hr 4min 28sec.

Hector Burk's rival, G. A. Wheatley, who was one of Australia's representatives at the Olympian Games, writes interestingly to "Harrier," of the Australasian: — ''The track (Olympian) is only 7 yards from border to wall, and the turns are around a curve 18 yards across (less than a cricket pitch). The two straights are 190 yards long, but there will be plenty of bumping at the turns. Everybody seems to know Flack, and if I come from where Flack comes 'You must be very goot.' They say Flack ought to have visited them, as he was liked. On Thursday the Greeks had their championships, to see who will be in their team. They practised throwing the javelin, and asked me to try. I very nearly killed a man as he was running past, but they thought it a great joke. I don't think I shall be able to pick up the Greek lingo. They are very polite, and doff their hats when you -say good day. They also kiss one another. A Canadian was the first to arrive. He has been here three weeks, and wanted to know if the Australians spoke English ! He reckons he can beat anyone in the world over 20 miles, and will do the Marathon in 2£ -hours."

In a later letter Wheatley says:— "The last lew days we have been training on -tine ground of the Eucalyptus <it sounds hke that, but is the National Gymnasium). It . is a merry-go^rou<ad track, 190 yards to the lap— supposed to be cinders, but mostly sand. Running behind Nigel, I was nearly buried in "the dirt he kicked up. At the Greek championships nothing sensational was done. They took .12 2-seeo for 100 metres, and filsec for the 400 metres. Of course the track is very soft, and won t be up to much for the big meeting, I *m longing ior a trot on a good hard grass track. Yesterday they had a trial Marathon and 168 started- The first 10 1 were picked, and tha winner's 3hi torn ZBsec 1 take *o be a great «o, as three miles cf the road was beautiful, slippery, sticky mud; a hailstorm met them a few miles out, and the last half was run in the pouring Tain. The Stadium looked like Niagara Falls, with the water running down the mairble steps from top to bottom. We waited for the finish, covered over with cushions some youngsters kindly got for us. There were seven of us, Sherring, who won the Herald Race (19 miles) two years running : Hughes, another Marathon runner; Lmdon (a walker), Archibald (a gymnast), all from Canada, with the Australian, contingent, Nigel Barker, Blake, and Wheatley. They have a strong man here named Topalas, who lifts a- big dumb-bell (3351b) with two hands as easily as a hungry man does his counter lunch at Hosie's. He is only 21. The wrestlinsr takes place in a sand-pit, and the poor unfortunate who gets down rises like a Scotchman (all sandy). We get papers with all the news, and see I am to meet Cornw-allis. who does 1.56 as regularly as an- eight-day clock, also Crabbs, M'Ccueh, and Sheppard, Lighitbody. and Valentine, from America. George doesn t say much, but he is 'fretting busy already, and I extieot to see him run well.— Yours, from pistol to tape. G A. Wheatley. The American sprinter Arthur Duffey, who is now associated with the magazine Physical Culture, has something to say in last issue concerning the capabilities of Nigel Barker and G. A. Wheatley:— "In the recent Australian Athletic Championships, held in Sydney, N.S.W., Nigel Barker, of Sydney University, won the lOOvds Championship in 10 l-ssec, defeatins G .A- Widmer, the former Australaskn champion. G. A. Wheatley, Victorian Association, won the Mile in 4min 23sec, defeating Hector Burk, the New Zealand champion. At a first glance at the performance of these two champions, Athletic World readers will doubtless think that no great amount of attention is due to them. But I desire to particularly call attention to these athletes, for they represent the cream of athletic talent in the Antipodes, and I might add of the world. In America, star athletes are inclined to belittle the performances of foreign champions, especially when the lime recorded does not equal their own. But let me inform my readers that time is no criterion by which to judge of the respective abilities of Australian and American champions, because of the vast difference between climates, tracks, etc. When I undertook the trip to Australia, upon looking up the times of the previous performances of their champions, I thought I would have no difficulty in winning every event. When I competed, however, I found to hit dismay that such was not the case, and for the reasons given. Barker, the present Australian champion sprinter, ie the equal of any of our foremost American sprinters of to-day. He is of short, sturdy stature, and the manner in which he gets over the ground is startling. When I ran him at Sydney what impressed me the most was hia terrific finish, and although in our match race with but a few yards to go, I had a comfortable lead, it was not sufficient to shake off his finish, and as a result I wa9 defeated. Barker's 10 1-lOsec on the spongy tracks which one encounters in Australia is fully the equivalent of 9 4-sseo on our American paths. Australian runners never compete on cinders, which is the explanation of what seems to us to be their slow time. In one afternoon I had the pleasure of seeing Barker accomplish 10 1-lOsec for 100 yds; 200 yds in 21 4-s=ec around a curve on grass, besides doing 50 1-5 for the • quarter. G. A. Wheatley, the Australasian Mile and Halfmile champion, has gradually won his way to the front by careful and persistent training. This wonderful runner is 6ft tall, and runs very similar to the American runner. In his races with Shrubb, although not the runner that the Englishman is. ho on many occasions made the latter hurtle. Wheatlev is a good allround man, a fair sprinter and quartermiler, but shines in particular in all distances from the half to two miles. The I Australian'? best time is 1.57 for the Half j and 4.23 for the Mile, which is one second from Shrubb's Australian record time. In defeating Hector Burfe. the New Zealand champion, Wneatlov has accomplished what the New Zealanders would practically term an impossible task. Burk was the only athlste in_ the Antioodes who succeeded in defeating the hitherto invincible I Sbrubb."

In reading of the sad death of tho little French professional runner. Henri Prevot, I was struck (says 'Vigilant," of the London Sportsman) with the following sentence : — <4 ln appearance he showed no signs of being a crack distance runner, being short and sturdy." As a rule, " short and sturdy"

is the very build of the great majority of all runners who can really stay over a distance of ground. To go back some 40 years, Lang was certainly a rather tall and heavy man ; but White, E. Mills, Brighton, Jackson (the American Deer), and many other great stayers that I might mention, were al short men. Turning to the amateurs, although Walter Slade, by far the best runner of the time during which he flourished, won the four-mile championship on one, if not two, occasions, he did not really stay four miles, as was shown in his matches with Gibb. Slade was fully 6ft in height, and fairly towered over Gibb; but the latter was certainly the better man at four miles, and the further they went the more easily he would have beaten the great miler. W. G. George may be quoted as an exception to the rule; but, though a tall man, he was very light, and I question if he ever scaled much more than lOst when stripped and really fit to run. In fact, over a distance of ground, the converse of the old saying can generally be relied on, and " a good little one will always beat a good big one," though, of course, the opposite holds good in sprinting, and all distances up to half a mile. F. T. Elborough and E. C. Bredin may be quoted as examples of" this. Both, in their best day, were unbeatable up to half a mile, but neither could get a mile ; indeed, both ran quite moderately at threequarters of a mile. The cable has recently informed us that Hackenscbmidt, the " Russian Lion," defeated Madrali, the "Terrible Turk," in a catch-as-catch-oan wrestling match for the championship of the world. The contest is reported to have been very one-sided. Haokenschmidt won the first fall in l£min, and the second in 4min. He was then declared the winner. Elaborate preparations were made for the contest. The men were to wrestle on a stage 3ft from the ground. Raised seats were built up to accommodate 7800 people, at prices ranging from 5s to 2 guineas, and a proportion of the receipts were to be paid to the contestants, the winn&r taking 65 per cent, of this amount, and the loser 35 per cent. The men were to wrestle the best of three falls in the" catch-as-catch-ean 6tyle to a finish, the hammer lock being allowed. Madrali is a protege of Antonio Pierri, who was himself, under the title of "the Terrible Greek," one of Hackenschmidt's first opponents in England. Pierri set himself the task of discovering a man who could lower the Russian's colours. After travelling the Continent and sampling' every promising wrestler he could find, he " discovered" in Turkey Madrali, one of the wrestlers who enjoyed the Sultan's patronage, and took him to England. Madrali, a splendic 1 specimen of manhood, 6ft lin high, weighs nearly a stone more than Haekenschmidt, though his limb measurements are generally inferior in girth to those of the " Russian Lion." Their first meeting, at thp Olympia, on January 30, 1904, in Grffico-Roman style, was disastrous to Madrali, for Hackenschmidt, a wrestler who disdains preliminary finesse, sprang forward at the call of time, and, seizing the bulky Turk around the body in a Cumberland clasp, lifted- him shoulder hio-h and dashed him. to the mat with euch force as to break one of his elbow joints, since that time Madrali has incessantly clamoured for a return match, a demand that Hackenschmidt's business contracts precluded him complying with. He promised, however, that he would, when occasion offered, give the Turk a chance to regain his lost reputation in his own style catch-as-catch-can-a style in which Madrah claimed to be champion of the world. Uaokenschmidt thereupon made a study of catch-as-catch-can. and by his easy defeat of Madrali he has become undoubted champion of the world in both the classic styles. Hackenscmnidt has now proved himself so decidedly superior to every other wrestler at present before the public that it will be very difficult to find a man to cope with him seriously. He is undoubtedly a physical phenomenon. In England, America, and Australia he has become exceedingly populai by reason of his unassuming manner and eenuine straightforwardness in sporting matters Hackenschmidt is 29 years of age, sft 9in high, 15st in weight, 21in round the neck, 154 in round the biceps, aud 28 2 m round the thigh.