AN OLD-TIME RACE

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 168, 12 April 1932, Page 8

AN OLD-TIME RACE

Mr. Leslie Makes Correction

SHRUBB-DUFFY MEETING

Time plays queer tricks with the memory. Probably after twenty-seven years this may be excused. When T. W. Leslie, well-known athletic starter, was relating an incident on the field which induced him to take up the practice of starting, he mentioned the “breaks” which occurred at the Sbrubb-Duffy meeting here in 1905. Through inadvertence he mentioned Shrubb as tbe runner who broke, but the offenders were really Duffy (America) and Widmer (New South Wales), and It was fn a heat In the 75 yards race that the Incident occurred. Tbe starter, Mr. George Watson, refused to start these men again, and tbe pistol was handed to J. H. Pollock. On that occasion the runners stated in explanation of their “breaking” that the starter kept them hanging too long on their mark. That excuse could serve nowhere in the world. The runners must start at the report of the pistol, and not before, and Mr. Leslie’s contention in regard to the sprint records one hears about is that most of them have been made by “beating the pistol,” a habit he never permits if he can possibly help it.