ATHLETICS.

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 177, 14 April 1923, Page 19

ATHLETICS.

(By

“Caduceug.”)

AN UNENVIABLE DISTINCTION Wo were advised by cable the other day that already the British Olympic Council had raised £IO,DUO towards the cost of representation at Paris next year. Some months ago I noted in this column that the South African campaign had at that early date brought in £3OOO. All the Continental nations, have the matter of their representation well advanced, lhat America is far from asleep is so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning. For many months Australian opinion has been working up to a proposal to raise a £lO,OOO fund; and so clear an idea have they in tho Commonwealth of the mark at which they aro aiming that by the .end of the next month or so they will be in a position not merely to name the particular sports from which representatives will be drawn, but to indicate with an approximation to finality, the number of representatives from each. Our New Zealand Olympic Council has the unenviable distinction of being the one body that has done absolutely nothing. Two years ago the necessity arose of appointing a new member for this country of the International Olympic Council. He has not yet been appointed. Six months ago at least the hon. secretary of our council (Mr. B. A. Guise, who has done good work in the past) intimated his intention or resigning. His successor has not yet been appointed. The Olympic Council, as the one approach to a federation of amateur sporting bodies, was asked to take in hand the question of " New Zealand’s representation at the British. Empire festival at the Wembley Park stadium, after tire Olympic Games. It lias not yet answered the request. A deputation from the New Zealand Advisorv Council of the British Empire Exhibition was to have waited on tho Olympic Council just before Easter. The deputation arrived to find that the meeting had lapsed, for want of a ouorum. The council is to have another meeting in a few days. Let us hope that something will then be done.

EMPIRE SERVICE RALLY

This gathering —an athletic meeting open to ex-service men throughout the Empire—will be held in England this year. In all probability it will be treated as a service meeting, thus enabling amateurs to compete against professionals. Here again New Zealand w<U not be represented, though.'if the matter had been taken in hand early enough, it might have been possible to induce Dan Mason to. come out . or retirement with the object of seeing whether anything remained of his wonderful form of 1919. in which year he was beyond doubt the world’s greatest half-miler. Australia will be there as a matter of course, and in E. W. Carr and D. W. Gale she will have nt least two worthy representatives. Galo i« Victoria’s best sprinter (he is good for any distance up to tho quarter), and last year he beat Oosterlaack in a couple of races at the beginning of the Springbok tour.

GOTHENBERG GAMES

Carr and Gale will go on to Gothenberg for the big meeting there.to cole-* brate the three hundredth anniversary of the city- The Swedes have entered into this festival with their customary thoroughness. They have sent invitations to all the principal athletic countries of tho world, offering a number of free passages to selected representatives. The A.A.U. of Australia and New Zealand was invited to send four, New Zealand for various reasons could not take any part in the affair, but with Carr in the field tho generous invitation of the Swedes will be satisfactorily answered.

CARR’S FUTURE

A fortunate young ma,n is Edwin W. Carr. His position is such that on I©>p of his trip to New Zealand he can proceed to England and' Sweden and then wait over in England to prepare for the Olympic Games. He will thus have such an opportunity of becoming acclimatised and of completing his training and in(thlletio education in such hands and under such conditions as no other colonial athlete has ever had in the past. Provided that nothing in the way of sickness intervenes to handicap him he should after this year of training be good enough to rup Paddock or anyone else who ever lived. Ho has over so little improvement to make to achieve the world’s championship title. Can he do it?

THE AUSTRALASIAN UNION With New Zealand’s separate representation at Olympic Games an accomplished fact, with tho Australian championships being superseded by a biennial meeting Australia v. New Zealand, a possibility of the near future, there has been a tendency of late in certain quarters to advocate New Zealand’s withdrawal from the Amateur Athletic Union cf Australia and New Zealand. Any good reason for such a step has not yet been made public by the advocates of separation. On the other hand there is not the slightest doubt that tho formation of the union gave, many years ago, amateur athletics, both in the Commonwealth and New Zealand. an international standing tho sport would otherwise not yet have achieved. The union has not interfered without .supreme control of our own domestic affairs nor, as events have proved, did it stand in tho way of our being given separate national representation at the Olympic Games. On the contrary, there is not the slightest doubt that separate representation was gained largely through, the influence of the Australian president. Tho great use of the union is guardianship of the amateur status. Australasian amateurism is above suspicion. The union’s ■amateur definition is as strict and comprehensive as any in existence. Experience in the past has shown the desirability of an impartial bodv .over and above tho associations comprising the union to say the final word in certain classes of applications for reinstatement. . Such a body is tho present executive of the Australasian union. Its decisions have always been just. In all its actions it. has endeavoured to meet the wishes of the constituent associations. It .has always had the courage of a gentle, “No” and what is more rare the courage ot an emphatic “Yes,” in the face of a chorus of “Noes. It is not likely that New. Zealand will seriously contemplate withdrawal 'from the union unless, firstly, the personnel of the executive is changed, and, secondlv, the headquarters are shifted from Sydney. Many years have proved the quality of Messrs. Coombes (president), Rowley (treasurer), and Marks (secretary), who constitute the executive. It may truthfully be said, so far as New Zealand is concerned at any rate, that Richard Coombes is the Australasian Union, that so long as he directs its destinies New Zealand will rest content. When, as in "the natural course of things he must do, he reliquishes control much will depend on his successor. But what, after all, would most hasten New Zealand’s withdrawal from the union 1 would be a change of headquarters. They must, of course, ’ always be in Australia. In Australia there is no place for us other than Sydney. Between New South Wales and New Zealand there is a sense of close sporting relationship that does not exist between us and the other States. Contact over a long period of'years, frequent interchanges of visits in a number of sports, particularly football, and the fact tbat .it is naturaly our gateway to Australia, account for this. It is no reflection on the other States. Tho fact simply is that they are remote friendly strangers who do not understand us, or we them, so well as wo and New South Wales understand each other. A change of headquarters and the union would at best become a working understanding between strangers—an arrangement that would come to grief on the slightest provocation. There would not in the. nature of things" be anything of the give-and-take that characterises the union at present. Not then, would New Zealand willingly put up with a state of affairs that makes us cross the Tasman five times out of six to contest Australasian championships, or that makes our entering the field for the cross-country championships a sheer impossibility. -EASTBOURNE TROPHIES

'Those few who have not yet. received their trophies won at the Eastbourne Carnival sports on February 3, should, without further delay, call at the borough office on the Ferry Wharf, where tho medals, duly engraved, have been waiting for more than a month past. In connection with these meetings it is worth a jOtethat the Carnival Committee set a high value on the go-as-you-please Orongorongo race. Altogether the trophies for that cost upwards of £25 —first being a solid silver cup valued £7 10s.; second, £4; third, £3: fourth. £2; fifth, £l. In addition, gold medals were given to the winning team, silver medals to tho second team and a bronze medal to each man who, not gaining a prize, finished tho course. All the medals were struck from a special die.