NEXT OLYMPIC GAMES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22337, 26 February 1938, Page 18

NEXT OLYMPIC GAMES

ABANDONMENT LIKELY?

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE TO DECIDE

If the International Olympic Committee, meeting in Cairo shortly, decides that the next Olympic Games in I 1940 cannot be held in Tokyo as planned, there is every likelihood that there will be no meeting in that year. Sir James Leigh-Wocd, chairman of the British Empire Games Federation, Who was in Christchurch last evening, said it was not possible to tell whether the games wWild have to be cancelled because of hostilities in the Far East. If this step was necessary he personally thought it hardly likely that the games could be held. Only 18 months remained before the games were to be held, and if another country undertook to conduct them that time would hardly be sufficient in which to prepare for them. Sir James has a high regard for the chances of New Zealand athletes at the next Olympic Games if they are held. Particularly dees he fancy C. H. Matthews, the Canterbury distance runner, as a prospective Olympic champion, but he feared that Matthews might now lose his opportunity through cancellation of the meeting. The Olympic Games have been held every four years since 1896, with two breaks, in 1910 and 1920, because of the war.