TEETOTAL SPORTSMEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21300, 2 April 1931, Page 4

TEETOTAL SPORTSMEN

LADY ASTCIR AND A. P. F. CH&PMAN ME G. NICKAXLS’S CHALLENGE. (From Our Owtn Correspondent.) LOhSDON, February 19. Mr Guy the eminent Oxford and Leander oanpian, challenges Lady Astor’s assertion,‘fln her message to A. P. F. Chapman, t»at, given equal skill, the teetotal athlete heats the man who drinks. ‘ He writes to the editor of the Daily Express:— \ Lady Astor saitil: “Every one knows that if one takes two teams of young men of equal skill, and if one team drinks and the other is teetotal, the teetotallers will Keep their form more years and play :?nore consistently well than the drinkers. This applies to all athletes.” I challenge Lnidy Astor to mention one team of complete teetotallers who have done consistently well. With many years’ experience of American athletes, 1 can confidently assert that in the-iextremely rare cases of teetotalism tk'at came under my notice, the wets •ishowed their superiority every tim<), and in my own personal experience of 28 years or more or less sudcessful oarsmanship I have never bedn beaten by a teetotaler. i I represented successfully my country in my forty-second year, and drank all the alcohol, wine, and beer I was allowed, co’old buy, beg, borrow, or be stood. t THE INJURIOUS TEA CUP. Mr Burton Ceylont. in the Daily Telegraph, expresses his if icw of Lady Astor’s statement, writing:. I • Lady Astor was-.mistaken in saying the Australians wa-n the test matches because they werei teetotallers. They won in spite of bel ng teetotallers. Australia would? be a happier country if less tea and more beer was drunk by its people. Tthe immoderate use o£ tea is ruinous to the digestion, as has been proveld by its killing off so many of the poctr inhabitants of the West of Scotland afcid Ireland. If people must (try to force their views on others, let them start by prohibiting tea and? coffee, and making beer-drinking comjvilsory.