OLYMPIC TEAM

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 97, 21 October 1936, Page 13

OLYMPIC TEAM

BACK FROM EUROPE

NO COMPLAINTS

"A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE"

"A wonderful time and a wonderful experience" was how T. Arbuthnot, captain of the New Zealand Olympic Games team, which returned by the Rangitiki this morning, summed up the trip abroad of the New Zealand representatives. "Although we won no trophies we have gained considerable knowledge which we believe will be of benefit to sport- in this country." With Arbuthnot were four other members of the team, N. Fisher, C. Gordon, C. H.! Matthews, and G. R. Giles. V. P. Boot will be returning in three weeks' time. He remained in England "with friends. The team was naturally disappointed with: its showing, said Arbuthnot, but each member had done his very best. People in New Zealand did not realise the difficulties a team had to overcome when it went abroad. , But it had been' a wonderful experience. They had been treated delightfully everywhere. Dr.. A. E. Porritt was a manager in a thousand, he said. A better man could not have been found. He had done everything possible for them. Mr. Sammy Chapman, their trainer, too, was with them heart and soul. The Games themselves were a marvellous show, and the Germans delightful people. Hitler 'was regarded as a god and Max Schmeling came next. Although the crowds had shown partiality for their own competitors, no one received more tumultuous applause than Jack Lovelock. He had just about brought the house down when he won the 1500 metres. He was a charming fellow, said Arbuthnot, and was certain to be very popular in New Zealand. , FAIRLY TREATED.' Although some of the decisions in the boxing and wrestling contests were very questionable, he thought that the New Zealanders. had , been fairly treated. He found nothing to cavil at. The Argentinians and the Filipinos were, in his opinion, the best boxers at the Games. The Argentinians had a very good man in charge of them. He fought E. T. Morgan in the welterweight final at the 1928 Olympiad, when the New Zealander won his Olympic crown. All. the boxing members, he said, were in,fine physical fettle in Berlin, but they sadly lacked competition. They had experienced . difficulty in finding sparring partners at Home (the English season had finished), and this had handicapped them considerably. He felt sure ■ that if they,- had been able to secure one or two actual fights before the Games, they would have done much better. They all seemed tq lack real pep. He was disappointed with the standard of English boxing, and considered that the amateur standard was higher in New Zealand. ," ■Contrary to expectations boxing- atBerlin had not been of a tearaway nature. There, was more boxing than fighting. The boxers were aggressive, certainly, but they did not throw discretion, to the winds; As a whole he said he did not think that New Zealand boxers had anything to learn. He had found training methods at Home to be much the same as here. One thing they missed, and that was a masseur. : '•, Matthews, the Canterbury, distance runner, said that he personally ielt very disappointed with his performance. He had done his best, but was far bejow his. New i-Zealand form. He struck the fastest heat in the 5000 metres, that won by L. Lehtinen, and though he only failed to qualify by a few seconds he considered he would have no chance whatever in the final. He felt in /fine condition physically, he had no trouble in staying the distance, but when he tried to turn on the speed I after : two miles he found that he had no'dash at all. OUT FOR THREE WEEKS. , Asked whether he thought that if the runners had done their early training in England on'grass instead of cinders, they would have been less troubled by leg soreness, he said that he did not touch the cinders at first. In fact he did no training at all for three weeks following the team's arrival in London. He did comparatively little work on board' ship for fear of shin! soreness, but a> day after landing he had a workout on the grass. He felt fine the next day, but a day later he was so bound up in the calf muscles (he. did not suffer at all .from shin soreness) that he was unable to train for three weeks. He. put his trouble down to the. fact that' although he had done little work aboard ship, the hard decks had so tightened him up that when he got on to grass a muscular reaction set in. ■• Boot, he said, was not troubled to the same extent,' although «ii. Achilles tendon had worried him on the boat. He was going along very well when he had a recurrence of the trouble about ten days before the team left for Berlin. He had recovered before the Games opened, and was in pretty good "nick" when-he competed,- "but. he found, just as I did myself," remarked Matthews, "that when he tried to sprint at the finish he could not change his action. He; did not show abroad the speed at the death that he did in his New Zealand races." PANAMA THE BETTER ROUTE. Matthews believed that better results might/have been produced had the team travelled via Panama instead of through the Suez Canal. The two weeks saved, by the former route might have made a tremendous difference. The Canterbury runner said he knew that the object of the ; New Zealand Olympic Council in dispatching the team via Suez was to enable the members to stretch their legs ashore, but actually Colombo was the only place at which the athletes were able to have a work-out. : • He was rather inclined to the opinion,, also, that the runners at any rate might have, done better' had the. team been quartered out of; London. ,';He himself did a considerable amount of hill work 'in, training, and he found it impossible to secure.any at' Home. . : Cinders tracks were a necessity i»v New "Zealand if athletes from this country were to-compete on anything like equal terms .with .competitors' abroad, he said. Lovelock was also strongly of this.opinioh.-and believed, too, that the team could well have done with three months in England. , ' : . Matthews said that both he, and Boot gathered much that was new in training methods, and they hoped to;assist materially New Zealand athletes in this direction- , VBut," he* remarked, "we must be given, the_ opportunity of making use of our kriowledfie." \. ''r , NO COMPLAINTS. Giles, the Canterbury cyclist, said that he had no complaints .to make about his performances; He had stripped as fit in Berlin as he had ever done in New Zealand. This was evidenced by the fact that his times at Home were as goocyas anything he had returned in the , Dominion. ;He had been fortunate, he said; in being able to secure several stiff races before going over to Germany, and these had undoubtedly stood him in good stead. He found that competition abroad was very similar to that experienced at the New Zealand championships,, and that 'actually there was little Continental Tidera- could teach New Zealanders,.

either'in the matter of tactics ortrainm Of course they were all specialists at Home. Continental riders did not.compete over all distances as they : . did here. They did not train (particularly hard. They covered about two miles in their work,, and then -gave, most of their attention to sprinting. They practised the "jump, out" much more than was done in the Dominion.' He considered that had New Zealand sent a tandem pair and a team for the pursuit race they would {have done'very, well. He was not very impressed by the standard shown in these events at the Games. . . The members of the team were the guests of the New Zealand Olympic and Empire Games Association Council at an informal luncheon at the, Grand .Hotel,