Strange Loss Of Form

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 121, 24 May 1941, Page 4 (Supplement)

Strange Loss Of Form

BERLIN FAILURE OF DON LASH

(By JACK LOVELOCK.) RECENTLY I quoted "The Amateur Athlete" as reminding me of Luigi Beccali's doings. The same number has an attractive frontispiece, attractive that is for those who are not amongst snow and ice, of an athlete breasting the tape in effortless, relaxed style. The onlookers are swathed in overcoats and balaclavas; the ground is white with snow. Underneath the picture are the words: "Don Lash winning the National A.A.U. crosscountry championship for the seventh time over a fast course, from which most of the snow has been removed." To those who saw the 1936 American Olympic team Don Lash's name and performances were very weil known. America thought highly of him, and expected him to go as close to winning the 5000 metres as did Ralph Hill, defeated by Lauri Lehtinen in the much-disputed finish at Los Angeles in 1932. Surprising Failure To those of us who were watching his performances with especial and almost personal interest his failure on this side that year was almost inexplicable. In the middle of June, 1936, he had easily won the Princeton invitation two-mile run from men as tried and reliable as Norman Bright, Joe McGlusky and Ray Lears, and his winning time of 8.58 3-10 was a new world's record, erasing from the books yet one more of the great Finn's, Paavo Nurmi, whose time in Helsingfors in 1931 had been 8.59 6-10. I have all Lash's lap times for that run, starting with a 62 9-10s and ending with a 62 7-10s, and his intermediate laps are all very even. Yet when it came to the Olympic event that August Lash was unplaced in the first six, and to our minds did not look the runner of times like his reputed ones. He looked heavy and laborious in all his movements compared with men as light and easy moving as the Finnish winner, Gunnar Hoeckert, and the other placed men, Lauri Lehtinen, also of Finland, and the Swede J. Jonsson. Again, later on in the middle of the month, we all met in London at the White City for the British Empire and United States match, won by the States on "a very hot, still pleasant day, with an indifferent track." My notes on this race are indifferent—l was coming near the end of a long and tiring season, and the nightly writing of notes was beginning to pall after six years of it.

Still, I well remember the race— and Don Lash again was not in it. He finished fourth, behind myself, Jack Burns and Louis Zamperini, but well ahead of the next Englishman, Peter Ward. Again his style was stiff, laboured and heavy, not the Lash of his American performances. He was either stale or cold, or both, but he could not run on this side. Needed Rest Next year he took off the track; his two miles record at Princeton was untouched, for Louis Zamperini won easily in 9.28 1-5, and in the national championships in July Joe McClusky took the 5000 metres in 15.4 1-10. It was not really till the A.A.U. indoor championships on February 7, 1938, that Don came back into the news. Here he won from Norman Bright in new American record time of 14.39, as compared with Bright's previous record of 1937 of 14.45 4-5 Truly does "The Amateur Athlete" write of him: "Durable Don Lash travels with considerable speed, whether he is speeding on his motor cycle as a member of the Indiana State Police or whether he is running cross country. "The Hoosier ace won his seventh successive National A.A.U. crosscountry championship at Detroit on Thanksgiving Day in the record time 1 t°' 0( 1 0 metres course of oU.JS 4-5. Lash triumphed over Greg Rice, his arch foe at two miles, by 200 yards with Luigi Beccali, the ?n^. mi3lC ??°? mf> *res champion of 1932, in iliii-.l i- :i,o •>