OLYMPIC GAMES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 230, 29 September 1931, Page 11

OLYMPIC GAMES

AMERICA’S PROSPECTS “SUCCESS HAS DWINDLED.” The opinion is expressed in an interesting article written by Robert Edgren in the San Francisco Chronicle Sporting Green that America, at the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles in the middle of next year, might possibly be threatened by better 4 ‘foreign” athletes in the track and field events. He says that America’s margin of success at the Olympiads has been gradually dwindling since 1912. Two reasons for this decline are ascribed. The first is that Europe and the rest of the world has taken more seriously to athletics than was their wont, and he second is the exhaustive try-outs held prior to the selection of the American team. The writer deprecates the system of trials, and what he has to say on this question and on America’s prospects at the next Olympiad no doubt will be of interest to local athletes and followers of amateur athletes in general. \ “There is a rumour going around that Uncle Sam is not going to win a flat race in the coming Olympic Games, and that so many brilliant stars are coming up in all the countries of the world that we will be lucky if we win anything at all,” says the writer. We have walked off wit 1, the honours in nine Olympic meets, and an indignant world is going to shove us down in the tenth. That’s the theory, at least. We have been slipping fast since 1896, when a band of American athletes travelled over to Athens to compete against the res', of the world in the first renewal of the ancient event. That American bunch of boys swept track and field with little opposition except in the Marathon, won by Loues, the Greek, and two distance runs. Americans won the 100 metres, 400 metres, England the 800 and 1500 metres, Americans the hurdles, pole vault, high jump, broad jump, hop-step-and-jump, shotput and discus throv. “American teams went on cleaning up in Olympic after Olympic, but since 1912 the margin has been decreasing, not so much because of any weakness in our teams as because Europe and the rest of the world has taken very seriously to athletics. In the 1928 Olympics, held at Amsterdam, we sent over what looked like a 4 corking’ team, and Raymond J. Barbuti was our only winner of an individual flat race. He won the 400 metres from Ball of Canada, by inches. The decline started with the coming up of the great Finnish runners, who were unbeatable in the long distance races, although from time to time Swedes, Germans and English runners have cut in. Even our short distance runners have slipped. We have had six winners of the 100-metre race. South Africa, England and Canada have had one each. At the las Olympic we sent the fastest man who ever wore a spiked shoe—Frankie Wykoff, and he finished fourth. “This was undoubtedly because of our folish system of try-outs that run the athletes into the ground before the event they are headed for. The boys run their hearts out to make the team, and instead of being trained to th: peak of form fo.- the Olympic trial they have to reach their peak for the try-out—after which they naturally slump. At Cambridge in 1928 I saw Wykoff win his four heats in the trials of the 100 metres, each in record time. After that exhausting effort the boy was not at his best again for months. Others were affected tho same way. Our athletic authorities, having learned nothing from experience, are about to repeat the same system of trials next spring and if anything beats America this will. 44 We have always been stronger in the field events than on the track. . . . We have had no weakness in field events. Take the Olympic records. The 100-metre record is held jointly by America, Great Britain and Canada. 'Pho 200-metro jointly by America and Germany. The 400 and 800-motro by Grat Britain. The 1500 to 10,000 metres records by Finland, who also holds Olympic records for the pentathlon and decathlon. The 10,000-metre walk record is held by Canada. Tho 110-metro hurdles by South Africa. Tho 400 metre hurdles jointly by Groat Britain and America. Wo hold the 400metro relay record and tho 1600-metrc relay records. Finland holds tho to- i cords for tho 3000-metre team race. ( And now see the difference when we come to field evnts. All Uncle Sam can claim in this branch of the track and field sport, is a biwch of Olympic records covering the high .jump, the broad jump, the pole vault, the discus throw, the shotput, the hammer throw,

and the 56-pound weight throw—seven records. Just wto field records are held in other countries—the javelin in Finland and hop-step-and-jump in Australia. “They say that Hirschfeld, of Germany, world’s record holder in the shot put but not only Olympic winner, putting beyond his record and threatens to win next year. But wo have half a dozen who may do the same thing and two or three now within inches of it. We have a javelin heaver who may give the Finns a workout. Our discus men are far ahead, and so are our jumpers and polo vaulters. “Beside all this it may bo noted that wo have come back suddenly with an amazing lot - of record-breaking sprinters. Eddie Tolan broke tho world’s 100-yard record with 9.5 seconds, Frankie Wykoff cut that by twice running in 9.4 seconds in intor-collegiato title meets, and this year ho has run in 9.5 seconds five times. Recently in an ope* invitation race ho ran away from Williams, of Canada, who boat him in the last Olympics. If the amateur athletic authorities, running try-out meets largely for tho gate money, don’t run this boy into tho ground again with preliminary and final trials for the American team ho will bo right there in tho big games when they aro hold in Los Angeles, his homo town nnd in the climate that suits him best-”