N.Z. ATHLETICS.

NZ Truth, Issue 142, 7 March 1908, Page 6

N.Z. ATHLETICS.

A SPLENDID RECORD. Good Men but Rotten Selectors. The record put up by the New Zealanders at the recent Athletic Championships held m Hobart is an excellent advertisement for the Dominion, and coming on top of Webb's victory it is pardonable W athletic enthusiasts m these three lumps of pumice stone have to use glove stretchers or; some equally aweful instruantiats to get their hats on. Of course, New Zealand is -very proud of its team, and justifiably hilariously jubilant over the said team's performance. But what must New Zealand think of j the selectors 'I Only four out of the : seven winning events were won "by men whom the selectors deliberately i passed over. Had it not been for I the Wellington Centre, where avouW ' Kerr, winner 'of the ONE AND THREE MILE walks, Sharpe, winner oJ the three mile flat, and MqKay, of the record lift. lin. pole jump have been ? The Christchurch beauties thought these men no class, and would have left them out m favor of Canterbury reps, who couldn't win an open event at a tradesmen's picnic. Strange to say, Mr Haw Haw man Batchelor, who came to Wellington as a judge of walking, thought Kerr wasn't a fair walker, and disqualified him m a race where he had nothing to beat and no incentive to break the rules of failwalking whatever. Kerr, m Australia, wins his events under the eye of as strict a judge as Dick Coom-bes, and is pronounced A FAIR WALKER. The Dunedin judges .also' voted Kerr a fair walker. Not*, how the devil came such a rotten judge as Batchelor to be appointed a selector. The performances of the three men mentioned prove that the selectors are asses, and had it not been for the Wellington Centre and Wellington sports, who subscribed to send these men across the Tasman, New Zealand would De well down the list instead of on top. Next time New Zealand is called upon to send a team of athletes abroad it will he well if selectors are chosen who know something about sport— men who can be relied upon to pick sturdy athletes and- not pretty pink pets.