Sporting and Athletic Review

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18009, 20 November 1926, Page 23

Sporting and Athletic Review

The annual report of the Victorian Athletic League (professional) states that last season over £IO.OOO was cfistril.uted in prize money at carnivals conducted under the rules of the league, as compared with £O2OO the previous season. X’o fewer than 1313 pedestrians and 404 trainers were registered, making a total of 1717, as compared with 1605 the previous year. The registered clubs of the league number ninety-four. The Paris correspondent of the “ New York Tribune," after seeing Koernig, the champion German sprinter, win the 100 metce handicap in an international meeting at Paris, predicts that he will be hard to beat at the Olympic games. " The German athlete," he writes, “ is a very high-class sprinter, and by the time the Amsterdam’ Olympic games roll around it is going to take speed to defeat him." The date of the American Channel swipi between the mainland and Santa Catalina Island, off the. coast of Southern California, is tentatively fixed for January 15, 1927. The swim is open to the world, and. in the event of all the competitors failing on January 15, any individual may make another attempt by giving ten days’ notice. The 25,000 dollars prize will stand until the swim has been successfully negotiated. On September 10. the channel was swum by a relay of swimmers for the purpose of testing conditions. A report of the swim is as follows Wallace O’Connor swam the final 200yds, completing the lay, in which fourteen men and two women participated. The total time for the swim was 23hr 33min. The swimmers covered 27.6 miles, according to computations made aboard the yacht Sultana, accompanying the participants. Six men were required to complete the last hour of the swim. Charles Rose, Pacific Coast club athlete, was the outstanding swimmer. In two times in the water. Rose swam one mile and a half in lhr 28min, and one mile and a quarter in lhr. The swim was made to test conditions for the contestants for the 25.000 dollar prize offered by William Wriglev, jun., to the first person negotiating the channel. A cold current six miles broad, and following directly across the course at a speed of about one knot an hour, is the obstacle that aspirants for the 25,000 dollar prize for the successful swimming of the channel between this island and the mainland must overcome, the chart of the relay swim shows. One of the tragic spots in the Australian team was the dearth of young cricketers with a future and the prevalence of older players who have had their best days (says the “Referee"). The omission of Kippax was described as a tragedy, but there are other young men who should have been in the teami Perhaps the five outstanding features of the cricket season of 1926 (says an English writer) are—l. The batting of Hobbs in Test matches and his 316 not out v. Middlesex at Lord’s. 2. The allround work of Rhodes. 3. W. G. Quaife's 1000 runs and 80 wickets. 4. Parker’s bowling—2oo wickets for the fourth time in his career. 5. The batting of W. Bardsley and C. G. Macartney for the Australians. As all these cricketers are over 40 years of age— Quaife is 55—1926 may be termed a veterans’ year.

Willie Ri'tola, America’s distance champion runner, won the two miles National Steeplechase Championship at New York on September 25. The event was first competed for forty-seven years ego and Ritola’s time of lOmin 34 1-5 sec was the fastest recorded since its institution. Last year's winner, R. Pavne, was second. 2*2 After an interval oi twenty years Alexander Herd—known to all golfers as “Sandy”—-has again won the biggest professional match play golf tournament of the year (says London “Sporting Life"). Verging on sixty years of age. Herd won a final that will live long in the memory of those fortunate enough to witness as one of the most nerve-wracking struggles the game has known. His fortitude and strength of purpose for a man of his age were almost beyond description. To our sor row the younger generation of golfers have rather failed us duiing the past few years. But while our veterans—among whom Herd and J. 11. Taylor and Edward Ray stand pre-eminent—-are capable of such great deeds we can hold up our heads with the rest of the golfing world. Herd is yet one of the giants of the game. :*: At a women’s athletic meeting at Paris on October 3, between representatives of England, France and German}-, Miss M. Edwards, of England, won the 100 metres in 12 4-ssec and the 200 metres in 26?ec, which, is claimed as a world's record for women. Miss Edwards won the 250 metres llat race in the Women’s Olympiad at Gothenburg on August 28 in 33 4-ssec, which is a world’s record. The previous record was 35 2-ssec. K M 2*2 A game of cricket was in progress, and following a round of applause that greeted a “sixer,” old George spoke up (writes a Sydney “Bulletin" correspondent). “'E ain't nothin’ t’ wot I was w’en I was a young feller," he said. “They useter call me ‘The Demon Swiper.’ One day I was playin’ in a match, an’ there was another crowd playin’ a quarter of a mile away. Th’ bowler sent up a slow one, an' I got fair on to it. Th’ ball went outer sight! Presently we 'ears a yell from th’ other crowd, an’ in erbout ten minutes th’ captain comes runnin’ over carryin’ our ball. It 'ad lobbed on top of one of their stumps, an’ driven it right inter th’ ground—outer sight. They ’ad t’ get a spade ter dig it out." “George!" someone remarked. “Fair dinkum,” he said. “Another time I was playing’ on this ’ere ground an’ I ’its a ball clean over that ’ill there.” He pointed to a rise about 300 feet high, at the foot of which our pitch .was situated. “Gripes I" said three of us at once. “I’m fellin’ y’,” old George went on. “Course that was over fifty year ago," he explained, ■ “an’ th’ ’ill wasn’t so ’igh as it is now."

Frenchmen have long borne a reputation, to our conservative minds, for excessive hero-worship, but their latest example is well worth emulating in this country (says a London paper). A first-class Stadium will be inaugurated shortly, thus adding another to the numerous sports grounds in and aro/.nd Paris. The new enclosure is to. be called the Stade Jean Bouin, and has been built to perpeuate the memory of the greatest distance runner

France has had. Jean Bouin, who was killed in the war. The new Stadium is situated at Auteuil. only a few minutes from the underground station, is on several tramway routes, and w.A rank second to the great Olympic Stadium at Colombes. In addition to a 150 metres cinder track, several football grounds and a number of lawn tennis courts have been laid out. In a country .where athletic prowess is a matter of both municipal and national concern, such an undertaking as building a Stadium to the. memory of a great athlete is perfectly natural —it :s a pity that in this country, the oirthplace of practically all athletic and outdoor sport, our principal sports enclosures are the result of purely private enterprise. ; ; In a senior pennant match at Melbourne between Fitzrov and St Kilda, Blackie took all the Fitzroy wickets, a feat never before accomplished in pennant matches. “J,W.'\ in the “Australasian." has the following with respect to Blackie:—He was a great and versatile bowler in his younger days; but as Victoria at the time was strong with the ball he failed to receive the recognition that was his by merit. Then, for business reasons, the game did not see him for years. Constant persuasion was necessary to make the happy-go-lucky, tall, slight, careless Don take the field again, though it is only just to say that, like Bill Ilowell before him, there is a fund of keenness underlying that smiling countenance. To counteract his lac) of pace Blackie has developed othc characteristics, and can swerve anc .break a ball as well—if not better than any man that ever lived, A Noble included. And. notwithstan ing that he bowls against the sam*. batsmen year after year, the best ithe State, he is never collared, an rarely punished, his combination < swerve, break, and grit reaping hi yearly harvest as regularly as the see sons. The only difference noticeabi is that he appears to be getting bette —or it may be. of course, that the batsmen are getting worse. Yet tin fact remains that our present stodg\ stay-atrhome, unresourceful batsmo are made for the long swerving righ arm of that tall St Kilda bowler. Or. merit no team in Australia is complet without Blackie's appearance, for h. shares with Grimmett and Mailey the honour of being one of the three lies, bowlers in the land. :-2 :*: Mr Alfred Jonas, founder of the Webb Memorial, and formerly hon secretary of the Channel Swimming Club, in a letter to the London pres. l ( states that it is proposed to form i \ , Channel Swimming Association. In thi [course of his letter he says:—“A. j.though there is no written law of hov. « the Channel should be swum, it ha: j always been recognised and accepted from the. time of Webb’s swim that any attempts must be carried out from England to France, and practically un der the same conditions. I feel I am able to say that this was practically the case up to 1923. Since then the course has been changed and numerou: variations introduced by the aspirants. Of late years these appear to be more pronounced, until at present comments by the Press indicate that those inter ested in Channel swimming are con sidering what future artificial means will be introduced to accomplish the

swim. Therefore, the closest examination should be made of the affidavits of each successful swim. Means are now being discussed by several men interested in swimming to prevent this fine accomplishment of swimming the Channel from being ruined by these artificial maens and lack of investigation, and to ensure that the course from England to France shall be the accepted one. It. has been decided to form an association —namely. the ‘Channel Swimming Association --to draw up a code of rules governing . Channel swimming, for which suggestions would be gladly received. ’ It. is also . suggested that the time has arrived for a trophy in perpetuity to be known as the. Worlds Channel Swimming Trophy, to be offered to the one successful in swimming the Straits of Dover from England to ; France, and to be held until won by another aspirant. To defray the expense of a trophy it is considered that an appeal to the world to subscribe to this fund would meet with immediate and adequate response. 2*2 :*2 Norman Williams, whom Grimmett displaced from the South Australian eleven, has been showing wonderfully good form in club cricket in Adelaide. In the two matches in which he has taken part he has secured 22 wickets for 144. Like Grimmett he is a slow bowler. We have seen depart so many of the porting honours that once were ours hat a multitude of Englishmen seem .1 too ready to belittle the athletic rowess of their land, and talk glibly of ecadence and all that sort of thing ,ays London “Sporting Life"). So it . really quite refreshing to have the _ev. F. 11. Gillingham, the famous ssex 'cricketer, write of the situation ; it really is and not as some people e so quick and ready to imagine it. Recreation is the object of all games,” rites Mr Gillingham. And that may e said to form the crux of the whole usiness. We still play our games and •astimes as we have always played hem—for the joy of it. But there .as arisen in other parts of the world a ace of athletes who lose .sight, of the ;ame in their quest for the prizes it has o give. They are welcome t.o do so, nd we do not begrudge them one single onour. But, in spite of all this, we emain what we have been since the .eginning—the greatest game-playing lation in the world. Kipling wrote. The game is more than the player of the game,” and he did so with great ruth. 2*2 2*2 2*2 An American sports promoter has a few words to say about the flocking of amateurs into the professional field. There are a few amateur stars left, but not enough to count. Most of them are making as much money out uf their amateur sport as professional can make. Some of them are writing—getting from 5000 dols to 12,000 dols a year —not because they are good writers, but because their names carry good publicity values. Others are having their expenses paid—and you should see some of the expense accounts—about six months out of a year. When admissions are being charged they realise that somebody else is making money out of them, so they get what tbev can. The professional promoter should be praised instead of being

blamed. He is drawing the fake amateur out into the open as an out-and

out pro, where he or she belongs and has belonged for some time. It is almost impossible for a star amateur to keep from making money out of his athletic fame, I’ll admit, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the money comes in, one way or another. In the

stress of present-day competition no champion can keep his game as a side line for pleasure only and keep his championship. There will be a number of other big flops from the amateur to the pro ranks in a short while, as you will see. All of which merely means that, the day of hypocrisy is passing.