Amateurism In Sport Vindicated

Northern Advocate, 16 January 1948, Page 2

Amateurism In Sport Vindicated

WELLINGTON, Thu. (P.A.)—Steadfast faith in amateurism is expressed in a message from the New Zealand Olympic Association sent at the request of the organising committee of the 14th Olympiad for inclusion in an Olympic souvenir publication. The message reads: "Greetings from New Zealand. We have always strongly supported the Olympic ideal so well expressed in the immortal words of the reviver of the modern games, the Baron Pierre du Coubertin; ‘The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle; the essential thing is not. to have conquered, but to have fought well.”

SAVING GRACE To spread these precepts is to build a stronger and more valiant, and, above all. more scrupulous and more generous humanity.’ “Within half a century the Olympic Games have become the greatest sporting event in the world, which proves beyond doubt that the foundations were well and truly laid through the amateur doctrine adopted. "We must hold fast to this faith, as it is probably the most saving grace in this troubled and bewildered world.”