OLYMPIC GAMES.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12732, 24 August 1934, Page 2

OLYMPIC GAMES.

N.Z. ACCEPTS INVITATION. PREPARATIONS IN GERMANY. “The New Zealanders, like the Australians and the South Africans, are a very open air and athleticminded people,” says the latest bulletin issued by the committee organising the eleventh Olympic Games at Berlin in 1936 “The Pacific climate and the great open spaces of the island countries offer exceptional opportunities for this predilection. Thus the ideal of the Olympic Games always found enthusiastic support In New Zealand, and this interest was widened and intensified by the visit in 1932 of Count Baillet-Latour, president of the International Olympic Committee. Although New Zealand’s population numbers scarcely one and a half millions, and therefore it is difficult to raise the funds for the necessary long sea voyages to international athletic contests such as the Olympic Games, yet the country was excellently represented at. both the last Olympiads.” Exactly half a year has passed since the Berlin and Garmisch-Par-tenkirchen organisation committees issued to the world the invitations to the Olympic Games of 1936, and already 32 of the 53 nations to whom the invitations were addressed have given official notification that they will send teams to the games, the bulletin says. France, Spain, New Zealand and Columbia are the latest to announce their acceptances, and the elaborate preparations in Germany are now well advanced. France will send 300 representatives, and Spain will compete in the swimming, hockey, football lawn tennis and pistol shooting. Columbia will have a small team “New Zealand’s decision to partici pate in the Olympic Games of 1936 will he hailed with delight everywhere,” the bulletin says. “The presence of such rare visitors from the other hemisphere will give expression to the world-wide stiength of the Olympic ideal.”