ATHLETICS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 27 January 1936, Page 6

ATHLETICS

GENERAL NOTES PROGRAMME FOR EVENING MEETING MAHAR CUP TEAM TO VISIT BLENHEIM The'next evening meeting of the Netson Amateur Athletic and Cycling Club will be held on Wednesday, 29th Januxiary, not on Tuesday as previous, ed in this column. The programme ot events will be as follows:Half mile grass track (scratch); 1 mile open (scratch); 75 yards ladies (scratch); 100 yards junior (scratch); ICO yards senior (scratch); 1 mile cycle on asphalt (handicap); boys’ 100 yards; girls lb yards (Burn's trophy); 100 yards ladies (scratch) ; 220 yards junior (scratch ; 220 yards senior (scratch); boys’ cycle race, two laps; 3 mile cycle grass track (scratch); relay 4xloo yards ladies’ versus junior men (handicap); senior relay 1 mile medley. CLUB NOTES It is essential that all members of the local team for the Mahar Cup contest compete at Blenheim in the colours of the Nelson Club. Those members who have not yet procured the regulation singlet are notified that such are again available from the usual source. The team during its stay of two nights in Blenheim from Friday, 31st January, will be accommodated at the Club Hotel. . The Marlborough Athletic Club has extended to Nelson competitors and supporters an invitation to attend both a dance, which will be held on the Saturday evening following' the sports, and a picnic which will be held on the following Sunday. This will cater admirably lor the social side of the visit. The Mahar Cup programme includes the following events: 100 yards senior and junior; 220 yards senior and junior: 440 yards, 880 yards and 1 mile; hop-step-and-jump ; high jump ; half mile, 1 mile and 3 mile cycle; 75 and 100 yards ladies’; ladies’ relay; men’s relay, 1 mile medley. ITEMS OF INTEREST Jesse Owens, the American ‘Black Flash,” who has long jumped 26ft B£iu, lias run 100 yards in 8 2-ssecs, from a Hying start of 20 yards. H. M. Osborn, U.S.A., who once held the high jump record at 6ft BJin, made no startling athletic performances as a schoolboy, when distance running formed the sum total of his athletic ambi-* lion. He was attracted to high jumping by a picture of Alva Richards .winning the 1912 Olympic title. In 1917 Osborn was clearing sft 3in, but took to the Western Roll and went straight up to sft 9Jin. The next year he jumped 6ft 2£in, and in 1924 made two world’s records. American pressmen, who have nickname J Jack Lovelock “the medical man in a hurry,” says that he could have carried a suitcase under each arm and come home ahead of their best milers and that, at the end of the “Mile of a Century,” he was “running well within himself and well without the otTNrs.” There is certainly a pleasing humorous smack • about these American press reports. Hr. Pat O’Callaghan, Irish Free State, is the holder of the European hammer throwing of 186 ft Bgin. He was a spectator at the English A.A.A. Championships last year, and after the event was over, picked up a hammer and in ordinary shoes and without taking off his coat, pitched the 161bs missile 20 or 30 feet beyond the winner’s mark. Wendell Baker, U.S.A., was fortunate when he made his world’s 440 yards record of 47Jsecs (now held by Ben Eastman, ,46.'4sec-s) on a dirt straightaway in 1886. His left shoe burst at the half distance and he attempted to kick it off; 80 yards further on it flew off of its own accord; and although Baker finished with his foot bleeding, the new record went .on the books. It has been proved that the average speed of a man over the first 7 yards of a 100 yards race is roughly one-third of the maximum speed he builds up during] the sprint.