AMATEUR POSER

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23372, 1 December 1945, Page 6

AMATEUR POSER

Swedish Runners Made Professionals Removal Of Records The Swedish Amateur Athletic Association’s action in declarin'* Gundar Haegg, Arne Andersson and 13 other Swedish runners pro-’ fessionals will have world-wide repercussions. It is alleged the 15 athletes accepted i money from sports promoters, and the i records set by several of them have I been declared invalid. Amateurism is as shaky as a cardboard citadel. The storm now ragin'* ! over the status of Sweden’s crack athi letes could easily cause its crash. Hie runners themselves brought the ! irritating question to a head by “be- • traying their own crimes” of the past i five years. Swedish sports writers say 22 world track records made between ■ 1941 and 1945 by Haegg, Andersson, and Erik Elmsater will be removed, and an appeal made for similar action by athletic governing bodies in U.S.A’, ; France, and Finland. Going On For Years The Swedish Amateur Athletic AsI sociation is asking tor “international modernisation of amateur rules.” That I can only mean the deletion of the word ‘‘amateur." Haegg said: "All should be treated alike. What is now disclosed has been going on lor many years, and leaders haven’t complained. If I'm disqualified I can still run as a professional in America or Russia. ■T think Sweden has given a longwanted lead at an opportune time for a new deal stripped of snobbery and all ludicrous ‘fiddling’ associated with socalled amateurism.” Asked to define an amateur after a visit to America, one athlete replied: “A man who takes no money, except cash, and no cheques—unless there are only two persons present, himself and the donor.” It is significant that the president and the secretary of the International Amateur Athletic Federation. J. E. Edstrom and Bo Eklund, are both Swedes. The headquarters of the federation, of course, are in Sweden.