OLYMPIC ATHLETES

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 3 September 1932, Page 3

OLYMPIC ATHLETES

DEFENCE OF THE GREEKS. ■“FULL OF VIGOUR, AND ZEST.” Could the champions at the Olympic Games defeat the athletes o.f ancient Greece)? Professor T. G. Tucker, emeritus professor of classics at Melbourne University; thinks that perhaps they could. But he cfcies not agree with Colonel Arthur Lynch, former Victorian physician, and author., who said m London that modern athletes “could run rings around the ancient Greeks.”

“Colonel Lynch’s remarks appear to me to be the impression, of a man who speaks rather loosely,” said Professor Tucker. “I would like to know where he has found all this information. I have made a, lifelong study of classical literature, and I have not found evidence to support his comparisons.” Perliaps a Greek athlete would be beaten at the Olympic Games to-day, Professor Tucker admitted. But that would be because there were millions of athletes, from whom the modern champion was chosen, whereas the antient Greeks were numerically a small race. The Greeks had no stop-watches to time their races, and any estimate of their times could be only approximate.

“For this reason,” said Professor Tucker, “I am unable to see that the Greeks were either better or worse than the men of to-day. Colonel Lynch judges the) Greek athletes from statues, which he says show magnificent models of masculine strength and grace, but to which the moderns are superior. We must remember that these statues were more or less conventional. They- are .not to be- regarded as exact representations of the athletes of the dayy hut only of types. “I don’t see why we should believe Colonel Lynch when he says that the modern athlete is of a finer mould, and has a more vigorous spirit thar the Greek. ' The evidence from literature shows that the Greeks were people full of vigour and zest.’’