AQUATICS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 183, 1 August 1908, Page 14

AQUATICS.

HOW IMG. ■Mr. Spencer Gollan, the well-known New Zealand sportsman, is finding the money for George Towns, of Australia, in the match arranged between Towns and Ernest Barry, of Brentford, for the English professional sculling championship and stakes of £400, to be rowed on the Thames championship course next autumn. The match was duly ratified on Wednesday at a meeting held at the Vesta Rowing Club, Putney. Barry, who looked unlikely at one time to secure sufficient backing, is being supported by a few sportsmen from the Central Markets. Towns has twice won the English championship and three times the world's championship, while Barry has yet to scull his first match of any importance. The race is fixed to take place on October 12 next. SWIMMING. A message from Hamburg states that . F. W. Springfield, of Queensland, who is , to compete in the Olympic games next month, won three races there on Sunday. He won the 100 metres (109.3 yard's) in lmin. 16 1-osec, 200 metres (217.6 yards) in 2min. 45 3-ssec, and the 600 metres (655.8 yards), in 9min. 20sec When in 1906 Cecil Healy, the Australian champion, visited Hamburg, he won the 100 metres race in lmin.fl. Ssec, but was defeated in the other events. In Germany the swimmers do not start in the same method as other countries. Instead of diving the men line up in the water against a rope, and at the word commence the race. This method, of course, has the effect of causing the men jto occupy longer time over the journey. F. Unwin, the Sheffielder, carried all before him in the back stroke race at the Stadium last month. He won easily, and l put up much better time than the winner of the second race. For Unwin the watch showed lmin. 28 2-ssec., and for Willis, of Manchester Mayfield, lmin. 34 3-ssec, the latter's time being beaten by several men in the first heat. Another Yorkshire success followed, for Blatherwick, of Sheffield, won the 400 ni'.-tres, in which, of course, some of the best men were not competing. He won by fully 40 yards, in Omin. 12 3-osec, but would have improved upon that had the Scottish champion Haynes been in better form.— (English Exchange.)