MINIATURE OLYMPIC GAMES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26077, 14 February 1946, Page 3

MINIATURE OLYMPIC GAMES

A message from Stockholm stated recently that Finland intended staging a miniature Olympic Games at Helsinki in June, when 26,000 Scandinavian athletes were expected to compete. Although Finland has not previously staged an Olympic festival, she has been prominent in Olympic records through the exploits of her athletes, especially her distance and field event men. At the Stockholm Games in 1912, Hannes Kolehmainen, the greatest runner in the world up to that time, won three events —the 5000 Metres, 10,000 Metres, and Cross-country Race—and he won the Marathon eight years later at Antwerp. It was this meeting in 1920 which saw the initial Olympic successes of Paavo Nurmi, who won the 10,000 Metres and the Cross-country Race. Nurmi was at the very height of his power in 1924 at Paris, when he won the 1500 Metres, 5000 Metres, and the Cross-country Race. Finland was well represented in the distance events on this occasion, when Nurmi's rival, V. Ritola, won the 10,000 Metres and the 3000 Metres Steeplechase, and A. O. Stenroos won the Marathon. Four years later at Amsterdam, Finnish runners in H. E. Larva, Ritola, Nurmi, and T. A. Loukola won the 1500 Metres, 5000 Metres, 10,000 Metres, and 3000 Metres Steeplechase respectively. L. Lehtinen (5000 Metres), and V. Iso-Hollo (3000 Metres Steeplechase) were successful at Los Angeles in 1932, and the Finnish successes in distance events were completed at Berlin in 1936, when Iso-Hollo retained his crown and G Hoeckert won the 5000 Metres. Finnish athletes have won a number of field event titles, their best events being the javelin and the discus, and they have been successful twice in the Pentathlon and once in the Decathlon. Useful Double J. O’Sullivan, whose bowling was the outstanding feature of the DunedinCarisbrook B attack in the match against Carisbrook A, in which he took five wickets for 61 runs, followed this performance with an extremely useful and solid innings of 57 not out. Going in as one of the opening batsmen, O’Sullivan stayed for 2 hours and 50 minutes, and was chiefly responsible for the combined team's success in holding Carisbrook A to a draw. O'Sullivan used his feet well to the slow bowling, and also drove the medium-paced deliveries cleanly, but a deeply-set field prevented him from scoring even a single boundary. His last partner in the innings, Much finished at 133 for five wickets as a reply to Carisbrook's 254 for seven wickets (declared), was J. G. Young, who, incidentally, was acting as captain in this match. The veteran ex-Canterbury player brought his experience to bear, and, taking no risks, made 27 not out, which, nevertheless, included three or four strongly made hook • shots, two of which reached the boundary.