TOO STRENUOUS?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 35, 11 February 1935, Page 10

TOO STRENUOUS?

COMPETITIVE TENNIS.

Girls should not take part in Olympic Games, or similar strenuous exercises. Dr. Adolphe Abrahams is definite about that. And when Dr. Abrahams speaks on such matters ho speaks with knowledge, for ho is honorary medical officer to the British Olympic Games team. In an address to the British Association for Physical Training lie spoke of the nerve-strain on a man athlete, and continued: — "I would expect it to be much worse in the case of a girl or young woman. One visualises a nigher type of nervous system, much less likely to stand up against the same strain. For that reason I hr.ve never hesitated to inveigh against Oh nipic games for women, and I am strongly against highly competitive lawn tennis. Of course, I may be quite wrong. A lady doctor I know tells me that I am. "She holds that women are more flexible and adaptable than men. "I may be old-fashioned, but I must say that when I visualise collapse and exhaustion in a male —an unpleasant enough spectacle in some circumstances — I cannot bring myself to believe it can not be worse in the case of a woman." Of the man athlete Dr. Abrahams said: "His life is one continuous anxiety to keep in the limelight, realising that the world is a cruel place and lias no mercy for failure. . . . People only remember that he was beaten."