The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1933. LOVEGROVE’S MILE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 167, 18 July 1933, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1933. LOVEGROVE’S MILE

pilli conspicuous success of the New Zealand athlete Lovegrove, coming on the top of the sueeess of Crawford on the lawn tennis court, will give a fillip to Australian and New Zealand athletics. There may, however, be something more than that in it. Austin and the other English tennis stars have also shown up as excellent players, and British, golfers have acquitted themselves well, despite the fact that the British Open Championship went to an American. It is quite true that in the realm of boxing Britain has not yet produced a heavyweight who can be regarded as a serious contender for the world’s heavyweight championship, but heavyweight champions are not born every day in the week.

The British athletes have taken a leaf out of the book of the Americans and specialised in their sports. The day of the allround athlete, such as was C. B. Fry, appears to have gone. Even in amateur athletics the sportsman must specialise to excel. This may be regretted, because it engenders a spirit which hitherto has not been unduly prominent in British sportsmanship, and that is an all-out determination to win. There is much to be said in favour of playing games for the pleasure which the game gives to those engaged. That is the true amateur spirit, to play for the love of the game. The Americans have long been renowned for their determination to win. Win they must. It is not the game, but the winning of the game, that matters with them. Has that spirit invaded the games which are in favour in England, in Australia, and in Now Zealand? Is it not possible that the prospect of a trip abroad has something to do with this perhaps over-keen desire to win at games? The question must be faced. In Australia barracking went on unchecked during the cricket Tests, and the barracking itself constituted a factor against which the English players had to contend. Was the leg-theory bowling the English answer to that wretched method of treating visiting sportsmen? If it was, it was as bad as the provocation. Larwood bowled according to instructions from his captain. Did Jardine determine to carry home the Ashes at any and all costs? If he did, then his methods were in keeping with his philosophy. But what of the game? It is a matter on which. New Zealand cannot afford to regard herself as without stain. The “rough stuff’’ in Rugby is nq new feature, but it has become so marked a feature of the game that efforts are being made to cope with it. That much is to the credit of New Zealand Rugby football. Returning to the track events, however, there can be no charge there of overstepping the rules of the game, but there the era of the specialist has evidently come to stay. Arthur Shrubb held all the records from one and a-half miles to twenty-one miles. It is permissible to speculate whether Shrubb would be the outstanding athlete he was were he running to-day. The specialist has made the pace faster for practically all distances. But it must be remembered that the trackmen of prominence who have come to the front in British sport have not been altogether specialists. Liddle was a divinity student, Abrahams was preparing for the Bar, Porritt was preparing for the medical profession, Lord Burleigh was at the University when he won to fame, and Lovegrove is a serious student and only regards his athletics as an amusement. It is true that the war reduced the number of potential athletes in all the fields, but the breach has evidently now been healed and the future for British prowess on the playing fields looks much brighter than it has done for a long time past.