EMPIRE GAMES MEETING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20372, 28 September 1929, Page 11

EMPIRE GAMES MEETING.

BIG GATHERING IN CANADA. THE PROJECT TAKING SHAPE. [from our own correspondent.] LONDON. Aug. 23. According to a special correspondent of the Observer, the Empire Games project is taking definite shape, and within a few weeks the programme of the first meeting, which it is intended to stage at Hamilton, Ontario, next August, will be available. Canada has taken up the movement most enthusiastically, and -everybody -who is anybody in sport in the Dominion will be immensely disappointed if Great Britain's response is not up to expectations. The Canadian Olympic , team manager, Mr. W. M. Robinson, was armed with authority to arrange for an Empire track and field meet in Hamilton next August. The extension of this idea to cover boxing, swimming and wrestling was con * ceived after conversations with the Representatives of Australia, New. Zealand and South Africa at Amsterdam. Rowihg was also added on representations from Dominion representatives. It has been stated that football, Association and Rugby, may be added, but football is rather outside the original conception, and the suggestion may resolve itself into a request to the Rugby Union that the team which visits Australia next year may return via Canada, and, if the dates fit in, play one or more matches during the Empire Games. The correspondent goes "on to remark that there is a feeling, in certain quarters, that the prospect of building up a team for the next Olympic Games, at Los Angeles in 1932, will not be improved bv the calls which the organisation of a representative team for the Hamilton Games next year will make upon all conThe answer from the Canadian standpoint is emphatic. The Empire Games are conceived in no spirit of hosti.ity to the Olympic Games. Indeed, Mr. Robinson, who has been appointed secretary, now holds that same office upon the Canadian Olympic Committee, and is very keen on building up a team for Los Angeles, which will even exceed the magnificent record Canada put up at AmsterdaGreat Britain, of course, stands in a different position, for Canadians are at homo at Hamilton, although some may have to track thousands of miles to attend the meeting. However, it is suiely the bounden duty of our sports governing bodies to support the Empire movement, as far as circumstances _ The Amateur Athletic Association will find its path made smooth by the visit of tho Oxford and Cambridge team to Hamilton next month. The university athletes were most enthusiastic over their reception, and will be earnest missionaries among their fellows. "Generally," concludes the writer, the difficulty of arranging to support these Empire Games appears to have been rather overstated. The governing bodies can find tho athletes, and I do not believe British sportsmen would allow finance to interfere with the prospect of a fairly representative team making the journey to Hamilton. . "After all, it is an all-British affair, and I know this much of our Canadian friends that these Empire Games will be conceived upon the basis of amateurism, as wo understand it. There is a distinct danger of a .departure fropi that ideal in Olympic Games. While, remaining keen supporters of these, so long as ihey are conducted upon standards approximate to our own, it may not be altogether bad policy to let the rest understand that we have an alternative policy, if„th!s brokentime business raises its head agnip."