OLYMPIC BLUNDERS

Evening Star, Issue 22308, 7 April 1936, Page 4

OLYMPIC BLUNDERS

UNFAIRNESS TO BOOT, MATHIESON, AND GILES , COMMENT FROM WELLINGTON It certainly is unsatisfactory that in a team of five for the Games three representatives of a sport which is of a very uncertain standard should lie included and a half-mile runner, a swimmer, and a cyclist of the exactlymeasured standards of V . .I’. Boot, I’. Mathieson, and G. Giles respectively, he excluded (says the ‘ Mew Zealand Sporting Life ’). in the sum-total of unfairness to the three athletes the eases of Boot, Mathieson, and Giles are much on a par, but they differ in the methods by which the unfairness was brought about.

Boot’s claim to inclusion in the Olympic team was sacrificed to a harsh rule of procedure. His qualifications as a half-mile runner were not questioned; the nomination was ruled out because it was not made by March 20.

It is agreed that there must he a time limit tor the receipt of nominations. The selections for the Games must lie made in time for travelling arrangements for the team to be made. But wo have not seen or heard any reason for (dosing the nominations 10 days before the time of selection.

This was not a case of a special meeting of the New Zealand Olympic Association having lo he Hold only if there were any nominations to consider. Ihe selection of the team was made at a meeting which had to be hold in any ease,' because it was the annual niectinJ of the association. There is only one possible reason why the nominations should ffot close only just long enough before the meeting for the secretary to put the required information in order, and that reason is to allow the executive opportunity to peruse the nomination papers and formulate recommendations. But 10 hours, not 10 days, would bo near enough for this opportunity. What happened in the Boot case was that when nominations closed Boot was not, as a mile runner, good enough to be nominated for the Olympic 1.500 metres, but be was, as ‘ N.Z. Sporting Life ’ pointed out a very promising balf-milor.

Between the date sot down for tbc closing of nominations and the date on which the team for Berlin was selected Boot proved conclusively that as a half-mile runner he was well worthy of selection as a competitor in the 800 metres.

The New Zealand. Amateur Athletic Association then tried to get the nomination of Boot before the Olympic Association. It failed only because on the Olympic Association there wore too many sticklers. for rigid observance of an unnecessarily harsh time-limit. The case of Mathieson is different because tbc body controlling Ids sport in New Zealand made two blunders. The New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association has the curious idea that the Empire Games are more important than the Olympic Games. It blundered again in not regarding Mathieson as having qualifications good enough for him to be nominated.

Different again is the case of Giles. Tin’s cyclist’s clear claims to representation "of Non - Zealand at the Olympic Games cannot be questioned by any competent authority. .In our opinion the three members of the Council of the New Zealand Amateur Cycling Association who prevented Giles from being nominated in time showed by this action that they were not competent judges of the qualifications needed of an Olympic cyclist. We do not question their competence in other affairs. . . . The question of the selection ,of the New Zealand team for the Olympic Games thus resolves itself into several parts. There is the obtrusion of sectional interests, which should bo subordinated to treatment of the question from a. national and broadly sporting point of view. That is exemplified in the way in which three boxers were pushed into a team of five, ami in the failure of sectional interests to rectify the wrongs in the eases of Boot, Mnthiqson, and Giles. Admittedly it would have been difficult for these sectional interests to rectify the wrong to Mathiesou, as it was the attitude of the government of his own sectional interest that caused him to he excluded. It would have been difficult, hut not impossible. Another aspect of the question is the fact that the proper attitude of tho amateur athletic section toward Boot —that is, its care not to nominate a competitor until lie had proved his worth—was nullified by the pedantic insistence on a point of procedure which could have been modified without injustice to anyone or without setting an awkward precedent. A third aspect of the question is the way in which cumbrous organisation of the government of a sport can yet leave too much power of veto in the hands of two nr three men, This is exemplified by the case of Giles. Vet another aspect is the evidence that, as constituted at present, the Council of the Now Zealand Olympic and Empire Games Association is composed ton much of men who, sitting in watertight compartments, do not team well when a national team has to be selected by them. Tho system of nomination and selection of Olympic representatives should be simplified and improved. A broader outlook should he required of all our sports bodies. Several side-issues were introduced into the discussion at tho meeting at which tho team was selected—sideissues such as comparatively small matters of fmairt-e, steamer accommodation for the team,'and some other incidentals. They are only incidentals—points that would have been mentioned only to he overcome if every step of the nomination and selection of the team had been governed by an earnest and broadminded desire, free entirely of anv sectional predilections, to send the best team possible, and a ream worthy in all respects of the purpose.