ATHLETICS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 8 January 1927, Page 12

ATHLETICS

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

(By “Spike.”)

FORTH COIMING MEETINGS. Wanganui Club Championships, January 22. Caledonian Sports, Hawera January 2b. R. \V. Lamb at Hawera, January 2tt. Centre Championships, at Wanganui, January 29. New Plymouth, February o.

.Late entries for the Caledonian sports are being received up till Alou- • «ay, the 10th inst. ; This is a splendid meeting, wlucli Jevery member should patronise. L. 1. iMatter, or G. H. Weir, are taking •entries for this meeting. Hawera members have a heavy programme in the last week in January. ijMo other date for Lamb to compete at Hawera could be arranged. He comoetes at the centre championships at ' Wanganui on January 29. There is a two-mile invitation scratch race on the “Lamb . P}°~ gramme, and 1 understand that Griffin, •the Stoning brothers, and Kelly are being invited to compete in this event. Tli© three-mile cycle and the 440 yards ; "l’un are each worth trophies valued at i£3 on this programme, j: • Several Hawera members competed uwith success in other centres during ,the holidays. ; Solomon won the 100yds maiden at Patea. and Bill Stening made a clean sweep of tlve cycle events. Gilhver won the high jump. Claude Shore annexed the hop, step and jump at Waitotara, 'with 40 feet odd to his credit, jjj Sid Shore qualified for the finals ol the sprinting events at Lower Hutt, but seems to have received a poor handicap. Leo Marter won th.’ old-timers dash at the New Plymouth Boxing Night carnival. The Wellington Centre s country club championships were held at Dunnevirk© on New Year’s Day. Ball, ot Masterton. annexed the 100 and 220 yards in 10 3-5 and 23 2-ssecs. respectively. . Newton, of Wanganui, who also competed at Dannevirk \ easily void the 440yds in 51 3-ssees., and the 880yds in 2min. 3-ssec. The 440yds hurdles were won by T. T. Vangioni, in 61 4-5 secs., a creditable performance. T. Oakley won all the cycling events in times which indicate that he will be 1 a strong candidate in the New Zealand championships. . Clarrie Gibbons, of Marton, is going ‘‘great guns” now. On Wednesday evening last,, at Wanganui, lie won the mile from the 35 vards mark in 4min. 22secs.. and on Boxing Day from the sam? handicap, was defeated by Rose, inches separating them. Sutherland, of Wellington, registered 45ft Sin in the hop, step and jump recently. It should be a great struggle between Maitland and Newton in the 440vds West Const championship. They are both running the distance in about 51 seconds. The West. Coast Centre should a? able to’select a very good team for the New Zealand championships this year. Of the Hawera members, Lay, Hunt, Bill Stening, Griffin, GiiMiver, Newall, and Laurent have good chances of being selected. Newton Goodson, of the Hawera Club, who accounted for the 100 yards championship in 10 4-sseos., is. capable of doing better, and may surprise some of the Wanganui cracks on the 29th inst. Goodson also goes well over 120 yards hurdles. . Sid Shore has a chance in the 220yds •at Wanganui on the 29th, as there seems little chance of 23secs. being broken there. The club’s committee meets on Wednesdav next, 12th inst. Hawera’® prospects of winning the centre’s banner this year are a little brighter than last season, but matters can: he improved if the selected members will get into serious training at once. They may remember tbe chances if they are successful at Wangauui of getting a. trip to the New Zealand championships at Auckland on February 12. ... „ In the championship walks this year young Will® should account for the Wanganui opposition. George Collins is also a- likely starter in the wsilks, just to help get point® for the club.

TWO SYSTEMS OF RUNNING

SCRATCH AND HANDICAP.

Alee. Nelson, the Cambridge University and Olympic coach, in a recent article, gives a most interesting comparison between handicap running and scratch racing. In the article, which is printed tie ma-inta-ins tli&t scratcn running must be fostered to the fullest extent if a high class athlete is to be produced. It is my strong belief (says Mr Nelson) that we have lost a good many champions, men who would have been valuable if they had not become wedded to handicap running. The handicapping system has spoiled them, and the question is: Can the promoters of sports meetings be blamed for fostering this?—well hardly. They have to make an inducement to bring the athletes and the public to the meeting. What more inducement could there be than a goodly array of prizes—hence the system. Then, of course, comes the athlete who wishes to win and make a good show of prizes. What does he do? He guards his mark jealously to add to his collection of prizes, although we blush to say so, and probably soon has a brave show. But what has happened to his running? He gets so used to running from his mark that he works his tactics from this mark. If he were called upon to run the full journey he would find that he would have to entirely alter his tactics, and run a totally different race. In scratch racing a man is more governed by the class of competitors in the race, and has to educate himself to alteration of gait, according to the pace set by his opponents; whereas in handicap racing he is probably well away at his mark, and perhaps has only to find a quick run in. So it must be realised that the two classes of racing make for entirely different methods.

As an illustration we will say a man starts from a 65 yards mark in a half mile. His time is returned at lmin 53 secs. He might then reason that allowing about six yards per second ho is doing say 2min 4sec for the distance; when as a matter of fact if ho had to run the extra 65 yards he would probably only .be travelling it about four yards per second for the remaining 65

yards. ,Wo that this is a very' deeeptii a way of gauging ins abilities over the ius lane e, winch, brings rue back to my point that a man who runs from a marK. runs his race absolutely' as a handicap runner and does not get the opportunity to realise iiovv differently ne would nave to run for a scratch event. Of course promoters of athletic meetings are usually men wno are very enthusiastic on the sport and their prevailing idea is a programme that will please the putilie and events that are aKely to draw the most entries. Thereroro there are two factors that keep nandicapping popumr —it is done to onng atnietes to the meetings, offeimg them good prizes as a reward for theii efforts, and secondly' the athlete follows the inducement of the good prize. Have you not seen the athlete reviewing the awards efore his race and deciding that he will not try for first because the second, from his point of view, is the better to su'it tbe occasion anil his future mark'/ Can this candidly bo called sport for its own sake? 1 venture to say it spoils the man. He is merely wanting to take away the most useful record oi his visit to that meeting. A prominent official once rcmaikod to ai e; AVe must have handicaps to cope with the hundreds of athletes who just love to compete for the game s sake, and who reach a certain standaid and stop> there and fully warrant the start allotted to them. These are the athletes who keep the game going and they must be studied.” Possibly this is true, and for this reason handicapping will probably stay, but 1 have known so many athletes who have only begun to realise their capabilities when it was far too late to specialise and after they nad frittered away their best running years with handicap racing. I remember a case that will point my argument. A man had been a handicap runner. He tried a scratch race on my advice. 1 advised him to stick to so-and-so and have a cut at him in the final dash to the tape. He hadn’t the ('oniidence in himself to keep up the pace; he allowed his man to get yards away. He thought he would have a “breather” and come again. A 3 a matter of fact he was handicapping iiimself as a supposedly inferior runner to give the other this start. Xn the last part of the distance he decided ho must make an effort and went up to the other runner, only to find that he also had been saving himself for a ffnai burst, and directly he felt my man behind him, simply went away to the tape. My man had not been used to doing the full distance and he was floored on his tactics, whereas the other man knew exactly what he was doing. He did uot repeat his first disaster, but with further advice found his capabilities. He can now dash right away and get his position, sustain his pace, and if he is challenged still find a sprint finish. He has proved he can stick the pace for the full distance and still finish. He now knows also that the best of runners feel the pace and that it is always necessary to exert mind over muscle. He also realises how much more knowledge is required to do justice to a scratch race and how much more effort. It is the little more that tells!

Establishing Confidence. Many a time competitors in relay races have come to me after the race to say: “I got away on a level break with so-and-so, who has a reputation far in advance of mine, and he only beat me by two yards.” This again illustrates that to find one’s abilities and to gain added confidence one must tackle class runners to subsequently he able to stick the pace they set. There are now so many more- cham pionship meetings, and it is all a very good move in the right direction. The sports promoters have discovered thatthe public take a great interest in brilliant amateurs of Olympic standard. So what must they do? Naturally they want them as a draw for their meetings. Sq of course they must put on level events to bring them. They must invite them to compete. Unfortunately, at the present time, there are not enough athletes to meet the demand. Consequently each special event does not get enough entrants of equal calibre and it is generally a ‘‘walk over” for one particularly good man. The others are “also ran,” and the unfortunate part is that they realise this at the beginning and do mot even expect to heat the “big noise.” It is simply a matter of the “big man” competing to secure the prize.

Here again is another great danger. There are only a few Olympic standard men, as compared to the huge majority of others, and they are naturally in great demand. To get them to patronise his meeting the sports promoter has to offer a big inducement prize. Some promoters are fortunate enough to obtain a galaxy of talent, while others equally ambitious are disappointed when they cannot get the ones they want, simply because there are not enough to go round. The only place one can see the whole of the talent more or less at one time is at the big sports meetings held in London. lam looking forward to the time when there will be many more athletes of an equal scratch standard, and a high standard too, so that all our meetings can have more exciting events and real good sport. This will only be brought about by fostering scratch events. Think of the excitement attached to good allround team competition and relay racing. A good relay race is a draw at any meeting, especially when the members of each team are well selected and more or less at par standard.