MONEY AND DOPE SPOILING SPORT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17830, 26 April 1926, Page 10

MONEY AND DOPE SPOILING SPORT.

AUSTRALIAN RUNNER DECIDES TO RETIRE. MALIGN INFLUENCES ARE CAUSING SOME CONCERN. The malign influence of money and dope upon pedestrianism in Australia is so apparent to one prominent runner that he stated frankly last week that, he was going out of the game for good (says “Smith’s Weekly.”). Tie is the 20-year-old chemist’s assistant, Bill Allen, winner of this year's Stawcll Gift. It is not that either evil touched Allen directly or indirectly. But this young athlete happens to be in a profession that enables him to realise the effects of dope, and he is sensible enough in the flush of his brilliant success in carrying off the Stawell Gift and the sprint handicap on the same afternoon and winning a small fortune for his backers, to decide to turn the game down for good. Thursday morning found Allen once more behind the counter of a North Melbourne pharmacy. An unknown performer a few months ago. Allen, who on Easter Monday sprang into the first flight of world's runners, turned his back on that career tlie same day without regrets. Some years ago a Stawell Gift winner was known to have used a stimulant in his heat, and in the semi-final and final. He collapsed after his victory and never ran again. The describe his malady as an aneurism. SPECTATORS REMARK. On Easter Monday afternoon at Stawell, a bush township girl was standing with her mother near the starting tapes. As the runners in one event set, the flapper said to her mother, "Look at the mark on that chap’s arm. There must be vermin at the place where he is staying.” This competitor, who was not Allen, had used the hypodermic needle, but without avail. The only stimulant that Allen took was a little sherry*. The usual dope taken by sensible runners is that which was introduced into Australia years ago by Floyd M’Farland, and Ivor Lawson, the American cyclists. Jt consisted of a glass of sherry with a tablespoonful of brandy added. Quite a number of runners at Stawell on the Saturday and Monday are suspected of having used the needle, and

probably the same conditions obtained at Bendigo and Warracknabeal in the athletic events that round off Victoria's great running week. Competition in these events is becoming keener every year. There were 134 competitors in the Stawell Gift this year from all over Australia, and the money lost and won ran into many thousands, STILL A CADET. The event landed a big win for a Coburg schoolmaster. lie realised that there was a fortune in the flying feet of young Allen, still a trainee on the books of the Coburg Drill Ilall, who can run 100 yards in ten seconds. Mr Bateman induced him to train under Jim Davinc, a famous runner, at the Fitzroy Cricket Ground. Allen began his professional career by winning three races in one day at Dean’s Marsh,, and followed up this up with a double at Colac. Then suddenly he tired of the bxtsiness. lie announced that he would not run at Stawell, to the dismay of his backers. They had to plead earnestly with him to make him change his mind. The atmosphere of the game sickened him. But once on the mark. Allen, in contrast to Mobbs, the Adelaide railway fireman, who was favourite, and was drawn of face and anxious, dropped down and set as calmly as if picking up a medicine cork. Mobbs had waited three years for this day, and, after competing in two Stawell Gifts, he found himself at last on what he was confident was a winning mark. FORTUNATE BACKERS. Fate was against him. He only lost because he met a running marvel. Mobbs losing the race cost South Australia £7OOO. Allen’s win in the Gift put £3OOO into the pockets, of his backers. It meant for Allen £IOOO out of the winnings, and £155 prize-money in the Stawell Gift. He went out at 25 to 1 in his heat. Forty minutes after winning he landed the Gift. Ilis supporters won another pile in the sprint. It was the irony of fortune that Frank Canny, son of a Melbourne publican, met Allen in his heat. He was backed for thousands, but Allen ran him out. He had to run half a yard under evens on Stawell's track uphill to do it. Australian peds are the world’s best up to the Sheffield distance. If Allen runs no more, Australia will have lost its most, brilliant ped in years, but as Allen sees it, it is, as a business, a game well lost.