ATHLETICS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 67, 19 March 1910, Page 16

ATHLETICS.

Says an English exchange: "Wβ are confronted with a new handicap rale in athletics, fathered by James E. Sullivan, and giving it a working try-out at current meets. The idea is to force all entries before the printing of programme, thus obliterating post entries, the first good thing about it. Then it is provided that there will a-lwaye bo a man on scratch. Thus at half a mile the original scratch man fails to start, the man with ten yards is brought back to scratch, and all other competitors are brought back pro ratio. Thus the man giving distance gets more and more time to overhaul the big mark men who thus have to travel further. How many races have -we seen with a man at 40 yards winning by a few inche3 from a man at 10 yards, when another two strides w<ould have changed the verdict in favour of the obviously better man? So far the new rule is good, hut its benefits and favours are unequal The scratch man benefits, the big mark does or docs not, according to capacity, but the middle mark man stands practically unchanged. If he could ' get up' and keep in front from hie full mark, so will he from the new provision. Taken all in all, it looks like a rattling good innovation. Which is really somewhat of a rarity in innovations of strictly modern date." Thu3 "Ranger" in the "Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News" just to hand from London: —"The burning question as to whether amateur footraeers should or should not receive expenses bids fair to be always with us. One effect of the English Amateur Athletic Association's ruling is that, although a team's travelling expenses may be paid by the club which it represents in competition, those expenses may not be accepted from, though offered by, the opposing side. Thus, although the Metropolitan Racing Club of France volunteered to subscribe £30 towards the Birchfield Harriers' expenses of sending a team to Paris for their international race on the 30th ult, the Birchfield were forced to reject the offer. In face of the avidity with -which the A.A.A. accepted from the poor Greeks the sum of £200 to split up among the few English athletes who went to Athena in 1906, and the £350 which the said A.IA.A. received for talcing the Knglish championships to the Stadium in 1908, the majority of sportsmen will think the ruling body's action somewhat strange." When the last mail left Capetown the prospects of the three-handed match between C. E. Holway (U.S.A.), A. B: Postle (Queensland), and J. Donaldson (Victoria) were being discussed. Holway was in training at Turfontein, with Messrs. Duggan and Dyer as advisers, and F. C. Davis, the Welsh half-miler, as trainer. Arthur Postle was also out Turfontein way under the watchful eye of Jack O'Connell (Queensland). Dona'ldson was training at the Stadium (Johannesburg), with Mick Terry (Tasmania) as adviser-in-cbief. "T.W.," in the "Gape Argus," speaking of the arrangements for the race, says: "The choice of pistolfirer was a much-delayed business, but Jack O'Connell hag now been mutually agreed upon. The local choice was limited, the only pair to choose from being Messrs. O'Connell and P. Naylor, the curious position "being the former is training Postle, and the latter, a brother of Mr. Rufe Naylor, being, by inference, interested in Donaldson's welfare. However, by the introduction of a novel arrangement of three-check starters, one representing the interests of each runner, all parties have been satisfied. This is the mode intended to b« adopted: A line will be marked 20 yards from the start. Holway, for instance, has nominated l<. C. Da vies as his check starter, so that if, in the opinion of Davies, either of H-ol-way's opponents steal -an advantage in the starting, he will fire his check pistol before the men pass the 20 yards lino, while others will perform the sa-mo office in the interests of Donaldson and Postle

respectively." Amateur cycle racing has fallen to such a low state in France that the controlling amateur body has just decided that any amatcUT rider whose wins are advertised by the cycle trade within a month of the event shall be disqualified.