AMERICAN SWIMMING

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 12, 5 April 1927, Page 1

AMERICAN SWIMMING

AHEAD OF NEW ZEALAND NEW METHODS ADVOCATED (From Our Own Correspondent.) WANGANUI, To-day. According to a letter received from Mr. Bert Olds, now in America, former coach at the Dunedin Tepid Baths, and father of young Leslie Olds who created much interest at the recent N.Z. Swimming Championship meeting at Auckland, breaststroke swimming in America is in the melting pot. There are many disagreements as to the correct style and the stroke is not too popular in consequence. N.Z. is, he thinks, a long way behind America in swimming methods, and yet there is great material in the Dominion, the boys and girls being of such splendid physique, and if developed on the lines of the United States many high-grade champions would be created. Mr. Olds was fresh in America from the N.Z. Championship Meeting at Auckland and expressed the opinion in his letter that the N.Z. conduct of racing carnivals was equal to anything he had seen in America. Diving is Mr. Olds’s long suit and he was full of praise for a young Californian University diver named Dave Fall. The “hunch dive,” he says, is never seen in America. All single somersaults are performed with a hollow back, the head is never tucked nor are the hands to the side.