OLYMPIC GAMES.

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 78, 1 April 1920, Page 10

OLYMPIC GAMES.

Very satisfactory features of the campaign for representation of .New Zealand at the Seventh Olympiad are the selection of a team before any appeal for subscriptions is made, so that the public will be able to exercise their own judgment as to whether the object is really worth while, Those- nominated comprise, without exception, all who may reasona.bly.be expected to do honour to New Zealand at the classic gathering, and it may be doubted whether in the past the Dominion has ever been able to select even one athlete' whose prospects of securing a place in an Olympic cnanipionship were equal to those of any one of the present seven. If D'Arcy Hadfield is able to make the trip it is regarded as certain that one championship will come to New Zealand, for on his last year's form in .Europe he is h-ead and shoulders above any other amateur sculler in the world. The three runners nominated, H. E. Wilson, G. Davidson, and JV Lindsay, are three undoubted champions. Wilson, in the light of his form this season following on his,, performances in England and France last year, must be ranked as the greatest sprint hurdler Australasia has yet produced. His feats during the present season, remarkable enough on their face, are phenomenal considering the circumstances' under which 1 they were accomplished. Wilson's business necessitates a great deal of train travelling; he has at no time been really in perfect trim since his return to the Dominion, and with odd 'exceptions during a few days in town his'only runs over: the hurdles have been in the races in which he has competed. Conservative opinion, as ever, has expressed more or less halfhearted doubts as to the correctness of his two 15sec performances, but the time test may be thrown aside altogether in judging him, for there is a better means. In Pans at the Inter-Allied Games early last year, when still some way from being the finished .three-stride artist he now is, he met two of the greatest hurdlers yet seen on the track—the Americans Fred Kelly, the first man to defeat Forrest Smithson,. and* winner of '.the sprint hurdles at.the last Olympic' Games, and Robert Simpson, the first to lower Kelly's colours since the latter attained to champion rank. On-a new cinder track, arid therefore a slow one, Simpson won the. final of the 110 meters hurdles by six inches from Kelly, with Wilson two yards away, in 15 l-ssec. On this alone Wilson 1 is in' the very front rank., Of the two- sprinters, Lindsay's selection'was no doubt due to the fact that the expense of sending him from Scotland to Antwerp wDI be small, and the probability of his recovering the form ho displayed last year is too good to let slip. Davidson's selection is a good one. TJiough 6till firmly of opinion that the New Zealand selectors did the right thing under the special circumstances, in selecting;Lindsay in preference to him for the Australasian championships, I am just as. firmly convinced now as then that no New Zealand team for the next' Olympiad would bo complete.' without Davidson. He may not win, probably he will not, but the trip will make a world's champion of him. He falls short of. .that standard now simply .by reason of his remarkable'slowness in getting off ■ the _ mark, a fault that more than ,any other in;a|,sprinter can be overcome by, steady practice.' When* he is relatively as.fast over the first as the last fifty of a hundred; arid there, is,no reason why this' should not he brought atout between now and. next August, he will rank with the greatest. In the last twenty I;_years "Aamateur", has seen the best sprinters in Australia and New Zealand, but-not one of them showed.to his mind, such phenomenal speed as Davidson displayed in the last twenty, yards of.llis hundred on the Basin Reserve. ■

The,nomination .of two lady swimmers was one of those daringly brilliant inspirations that carry their own success. In both Miss Walrond and Miss .Shand the Dominion has at last produced swimmers up to Australian and American standard, and iii making this claim I am not forgetting Malcolm Champion. They are both mere girls, Miss. Walrond in particular, and so- likely to improve greatly, even in the next few months. As it is, their present performances put them in the front rank of the world's greatest lady, swimmers.. Atkinson, the breast-stroke specialist, is in a class by himself in this event. His best time, in New Zealand waters, which, are' never favourable to really fast' swimming, i is within measurable distance of Olympic records. : ■ "

The financial task ahead of the Olympic. Council is a heavy one, but with the selection they have made of a brilliant team it should be brought to a successful conclusion. The idea of circulating shilling subscription lists, among all sports ■clubs shoma in itself bring in close .npon a thousand pounds. If it does not then it will be a damning reflection on the sportsmanship of New Zealand athletes, footballers, cricketers, runners, swimmers,- and the-rest.