OLYMPIC GAMES

Evening Star, Issue 18807, 4 December 1924, Page 4

OLYMPIC GAMES

HR POeniTT’S VIEWS. NEW ZEALAND SHOULD BE FULLY REPRESENTED. [Special to the 1 Stab.’] WELLINGTON, December 3. An opinion for the use of the New Zealand Olympic Council, in view of representation at future Olympic Games, has come to hand from Mr A. E. PorriU, the New Zealand Rhodes scholar, who was the dominion's sole representative in' athletic events at the last Games in Paris, and who gained third place in the. ICO metres event. Mr Porritt states: “ ‘ The, Tiraes’s ' attack on the Games, which seems to have caused the trouble (and unfortunately not only in New Zealand), was an absolutely uncalled-for and unjustifiable literary elfu Eton which has done an immense amount of harm and achieved nothing. It was not like ‘ The Times,’ and it would be hard to believe it was produced by a man who knew anything about the active side of the Games and the excellent idea behind them. The Games are not a failure by a very long way, and there is not one jot of cessation of activity on the part of tho Olympic Council officials. There is not the slightest doubt that England will take part in the next Games. I say this with authority, and not merely from my own personal experience, because I have quite recently seen General Kentish, tho chairman of the British Olympic Council. He was duly incensed over ‘ The Times’s ’ attack, but stated emphatically that any idea of the disruption of the Games was to bo scouted, and tho sort of hazy suspicion that England would withdraw from the next Games was all nonsense. Ho was at that time preparing to leave ter Geneva, there to assist the General Olympic Committee to get under way arrangements tor the next Games. “ One admits that the Games are un-wieldy-—too unwieldy; one admits that there were minor ‘ incidents ’ during the Paris Games: but I should be the last to admit that, in anything like a general sense, they were detrimental to international good spirit. One has only to consider the question logically to see tho foolishness of any such statement. Does not every country —does not England, do not we —have its little local squabbles in every branch of sport over some relatively trivial matter? And now consider tho Games; with a- large number of sports, all being indulged in in the same place, and often at the same time, every sport necessitating many (often hundreds of) contests, and the participants in these people whose outlook on life is as varied as any mosaic—should any reasonably broad-minded man cast up his hands in pained astonishment when, out of all that, there emerge usually vastly exaggerated tales of one or two small troubles and differences? They are as a drop in the ocean. In my own part of tho Games, after all tho largest -section of them, there was never, throughout, one murmur of bad feeling; and I can personally vouch for no small increase in international bonhommie amongst the athletes and swimming contestants, and, in fact, most of the other sports. Boxing and fencing, at the best of limes, by their very nature invito trouble, and that tho occurrence in a minor degree of those should have been magnified as it was is more than a crying shame. I know very well that you will do everything you can to counteract any adverse opinion that may have come from such fabrications, and if anything I have said, or anything I do, will be of any use to you I know you will use it and me.

“ Granting, then, that the Gaines are a good proposition, it certainly is up to New Zealand to see that it is properly represented at the next Games and fully represented at Los Angeles. Not only am I sure that many of our men at home (in New Zealand) would come considerably into the limelight in the Games, but also there is the consideration of the immense benefit to New Zealand which is to be obtained from a respectable representation in the mere advertisement of her existence, which it is rather humiliating to find is, if not unknown, at any rato very little known over here; and then, again, you are forming a nucleus of athletic experience in New Zealand from which great things can grow (and I am sure would grow). lam also certain that letters from Abrahams, Liddell, Lowe, Baker, Stallard, and so on, should they be required, would tell yon the same—that the Games are a power working in the right direction, both internationally and nationally—that is to say, from our own New Zealand point of view; and therefore surely worthy of all the support we can give them.”