Record Book Does Not Show That Bootleg Products Are Wrecking American Athletics

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7300, 9 August 1930, Page 13

Record Book Does Not Show That Bootleg Products Are Wrecking American Athletics

Sensational Charge of Famous Ex-Athlete Vigorously Challenged by Expert , Who Analyses Position . CHARLIE PADDOCK, himself one of the greatest athletes of the past ten years, has written an article in which he says American athletes are going to pot—-literally. That is, that bootlegger products are ruining them. Charlie says that while America still manages to produce some good sprinters, jumpers and weight-throwers, it never has good distance runners any more because bootlegger booze and the flask-on-the-hip-at-parties habit destroys endurance. Charles cites specific instances in which he has seen schoolboy football teams, etc., liquor up copiously between games and j. flop back into a losing streak.

Robert Edgren, one of America’s foremost sporting authorities, replies in 'a spirited defence of the athletes Of today. He agrees that bootlegged poisons have replaced in amazing quantities the old-time beverages that were in part beneficial and in part much less destructive than the stuff that floods the United States now. But, says Edgrin, I think Charlie Paddock somewhat overrates the bootleg liquor effect on our future Olympic team material. It’s true that we haven’t make a remarkable showing in some the longer races at recent Olympic meets. One reason is that shorter and snappier contests are more popular in America. The sprinters in sport get all the' applause. Naturally every young athlete wants to sprint. And probably the automobile has more to do with indifference to the charm of long-distance running than anything else in this country. Easier To Ride 'lt doesn’t seem practical to an American to train several years to be able to keep up a pace slightly under five minutes to the mile for six miles, as Paavo Nurmi did recently in England. A car can get you there easily in a quarter of the time. The short sprint events, the jumping and the weight-throwing are fun. Distance running is a grind. And recent sport events in this country don’t carry out the idea that all our young athletes carry a flask on the hip or do much drinking out of the other fellows’ flasks. Many do A far greater percentage than in preprohibition days, but not all. And those that ease their athletic training with the bootleg stuff drop out of sight quickly. You hear of them for a short time and then no more. The athletes who become champions and reach a certain degree of honourable fame may be. regarded as “duds" in a certain useless branch of society, but they aren’t duds among their own kind. They are the finest the world ever saw. Take, for Instance, some of the performances by young college athletes at the recent college championship meets, the I.C.A.A.A.A. in the East and the National C.A.A. in the Middle West, which college meets show where our Olympic material is to come from. £ in the first, Connor, of Yale, won the hammer throw with over 177 feet, a . championship performance in any company. And note the class of the hammer throwers; 159 feet took only

fifth place! Five men topped six feet in the high jump. Eight tied for second in the pole vault at 13 feet. Twenty-four feet in the broad jump was good only for fifth place. It took better than 150 feet to qualify for the finals in the discus throw. Krenz won the discus with 160 feet 92 inches. Note amazing performance in many other events. Record of Harvard won the Eastern 120 hurdles in 14.85; An-, derson, of Washington, in the Nationals, hurdled in 14.45, equalling Thomson’s great world record in that event. Wykeff, the great little U.S.C. sprinter, won the national 100 yd race in 9.45, a brand new world's -record but for one fact: Wykoff had already won the Pacific Coast in-ter-collegiate hundred in 9.45, the same time, and in both meets without the use of starting blocks or any favouring breeze. That’s one for Charlie Paddock to think over. Charlie rap the hundred, in championship competition, in 9.5 s for a world’s record a couple of years or so ago and it would have been on the record books before Tolan’s 9.5 if the A.A.U. wise men hadn’t decided that tenth-second watches were not to be recognised in Paddock’s case. More than that, Rothert has put the shot 52ft Jin, a foot better than Ralph Rose’s record that stood for 20 years. . THE DISTANCE MEN But let’s take up Charlie Paddock’s real argument that the “degeneration” of American athletics shows in the distance running- At Chicago Bowen of Pittsburgh won the quarter-mile in 48sec and at Cambridge, Engle, of Yale, won in 48.2. Fine performances —and athletes and coaches agree that the quarter-mile, being an extended sprint, extended to the distance of a “run,” is one of the toughest events on the whole athletic programme. These boys don’t support any bootlegger. That’s sure. Martin, of Purdue, won the western half-mile in 1:54.1, and Chapman, of Bates, won at Cambridge in 1:52.4. In the mile Bullwinkle, of C.C.N.Y., at Cambridge won in 4:18.8, about half a second faster than Sivak, of Butler, ran at Chicago the following week. And Bullwinkle a week later ran his mile at Travers Island a bit over 4:17. No bootleg cinders in this lad’s interior. He’ll make some of them travel at Los Angeles in 1932. Manning, of Wichita, won the twomile at Chicago in 9min 18.1 sec, which would be fairly fast for Nurmi. No, bootleg stuff isn’t getting, all the athletes in America. We don’t hear much about the hip flask athletes, but it’s an evident proposition, Sir Charles, that we have a few good lads coming along who aren’t fools enough to fall for it.