JUBILEE CUP

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 3, 25 March 1927, Page 12

JUBILEE CUP

SPRINTJCLASSIC WILLIAMS V. ELLIOTT ATHLETIC NOTES AND NEWS The star attraction at the St. Patrick’s sports at the Domain tomorrow promises to be the meeting of L. C. Williams and A. J. Elliott in the Jubilee Cup. After the New Zealand track and field championships at Auckland last month there was a lot of argument about the relative merits of Williams and Elliott. They should be in a fair way to be settled to-morrow. Both men will start off scratch. They have met twice before off the same mark, and each has beaten the other. Tomorrow is the third clash between the pair. May the better man win. Elliott has had a meteoric career. At the start of the season he was an unknown competitor. To-day he is the Auckland sprint champion. That title is his by virtue of his victory over Williams at the Auckland championships last month. It was Elliott’s seventh sprint victory on end. A week later —at the New Zealand championships—Williams turned the tables on his younger rival. Showing all his old pace off the mark, the old champion ran a meritorious second to M. Leadbetter, the New Ze.aland champion, in the great time of 9 4-ssec. Williams’s own time was a shade under “evens,” while Elliott also ran a splendid race to get within half a yard of the ex-Auckland champion at the finish. In a handicap event such as this, there is always the possibility of some of the lesser lights having a say in the proceedings. Both Williams and Elliott will face stiff opposition in their heats, and at present S. C. Fergusson I is given a big chance by the knowing ones. After Garlick’s Blood If Frank Nesdale is able to come up from Te Awamutu to-morrow there is the likelihood of a battle royal in the 440yds. hurdles. Nesdale is the ex-New Zealand champion, but he will find his work cut out to head off A. C. Garlick, the present Dominion title-holder, who registered new figures for the quarter mile journey over the battens at the last New Zealand championship gathering. What a wonderful all-round performer Shirley is! Seldom this season has the champion looked as if he were trained up to concert pitch, but he still keeps on winning and putting up any number of fine performances. At East Tamaki he cleared sft. lOin. in the high jump, which suggests that if he were able to give more time to an intensive course of training he would yet clear 6ft. But the record he is most likely to beat with training is his own figures for the hop, step and jump, 47ft. 43in., which he established at the recent Dominion championships.

The next big- event on the athletic calendar in Auckland is the Auckland Glub s victor Ludorum meeting next Saturday. After that come meetings Te Awamutu and Hamilton, on the 9th and 16th of April respectively, and one at Ngahinepouri on Easter Monday. The New Zealand Universitv championships are being held at Auckland the same day. The cross-country season will open on Saturday, April 30. Auckland is the present holder of the New Zealand cross-country championship, and a big effort will be made this year to retain the title. At the present time, Kells, the New Zealand champion, is taking a spell, in anticipation of a strenuous season ahead. He has been out of form lately, and was not his usual self at the New Zealand championships. The spell should do him the world of good. Rose and Lay. Rose is certainly a sort of superenthusiast in his way—he thinks nothing of getting up at four in the morning, and putting in a hard forenoon slog on the farm, before hastening away to an athletic meeting many miles away. Only an athlete in the pink of physical condition could stand the strain. While Rose is showing the Wellington Saturday night crowd what he can do on the track, S. A. Lay will be looking round for his javelin. The Hawera champion is steadily climbing up the scale towards the world’s record figures held by the great Myrrha. A week or two ago, he hurled the speai 205 ft llEin.