CHAMPION AMERICAN WRESTLER

Evening Star, Issue 18808, 5 December 1924, Page 5

CHAMPION AMERICAN WRESTLER

MAN OF 300 CONTESTS, Ted Thye, light-heavy-weight champion wrestler of America, has arrived in Sydney. He is a fine, upstanding young fellow of thirty-two years of age, with a modest bearing, although ho has figured in 500 contests. 'Thye has had wonderful success and is very popular in the United States because of the speed with which he wrestles. Among the men he has beaten is Walter Miller, who was in Australia recently. In one bout between Thye and ■Miller the men wrestled for three hours forty minutes before Thye won. He has wrestled all the cracks of his weight, including Tony Ajax, Johnny Myers, Sam Claphara, Clarence Eckland, Rentrog, and Henry Erslinger. Thye will enjoy popularity in Australia^ One thing the champion is fond of telling—that is how he sent two boys from the Multnomah Athletic Club, of Portland, Oregon, to the Olympic Games. Each of them won a wrestling championship. The boys were originally sent to New York, where elimination tests were made from among 278 aspirants to Olympic honors. Only twenty-two were chosen, and Thye’s two boys were among them. Only one other American won a wrestling title. ' He was from Los Angeles, which city provided three of the boxing winners at the Games in Paris. They were under the tutorship of that fine fellow, George Blake, boxing instructor of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Thye started to wrestle at an early age. Back in 1909 he went to Spokane from his home town, Aberdeen, South Dakota, and wrestled as an amateur. In 1913 he won the national championship, and that same year became a professional. Thye is under contract to Stadiums Ltd., for five contests, and it is probable that ly~ frfst match will be in Melbourne.