SAN ROMANI’S RACE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 264, 7 November 1936, Page 4

SAN ROMANI’S RACE

JACK LOVELOCK’S LAST FLING THE “GOLDEN AGE OF THE MILE" ENGLISH WRITER SAYS IT IS OVER

So Lovelock’s gamble has failed and his career of victory ends with the second best, writes E. A. Montague, commenting in the Manchester Guardian" on J. E. Lovelock's retiring race on October 3 in America. San Romani had learnt his lesson it seems, proceeds the writer. He never allowed the leaders to get away from him, and after the first two laps he was clearly in charge of the race. The second and third laps were not fast enough to shake him off, and in the final quar-ter-mile Lovelock was outpaced and outlasted by the deadliest finisher alive. His consolation must be that he fought San Romani to the finish and that once again he beat Cunningham, who entirely failed to stay the pace at the crisis. Any chance that anybody had of making a new world's record was ruined by the slow’ second lap. Once more, as last year, Dawson set the pace, and his first lap in 625, was reasonably fast, but his second in 65.35. was not the running of a man who wanted a new record to be made; in fact, it destroyed any possibility of a record. One cannot help thinking that Lovelock made a bad tactical mistake by allowing such a slow pace to be dictated to him. Apart from ruining the prospects of a fast time, at which, one presumes, he was aiming, it played into the hands of San Romani and his tremendous finishing speed. Lovelock’s instinct—usually a sound one—is to let the other man do the work, but this was surely a moment w hen if he was to win he ought to have gone out and done the work himself. If one thing was certain, it was that San Romani was the strongest finisher in the field and that the only way to beat him was to tire him out or shake him off early in the race. An Amazing Last Lap. The third lap was almost as slow— I 64.95. If Lovelock had made it 62s the race might yet have been saved, but he allowed it to be run to suit San j Romani's book. Perhaps he was too I jaded and unfit to make the necessary I effort. And yet when just before the end of the third lap San Romani moved masterfully into the lead how grandly the old master roused himself to fight. The last quarter was i 56.85. by far the fastest lap that has ever been run in a big mile. The nearest approach to it was Lovelock's own 58.95.. when he beat the world's record in 1933. San Romani had had just the race he wanted and now he I set out on a last lap such as only he ' can run. Cunningham fell back beaten immediately, but Lovelock hung on, and as they went round the • last bend he made his tinal effort. For ' a moment he seemed to gain, but flesh j and blood could not stand the strain. For all his strength and skill and I faultless courage he was done. So ends a great career, and with 1t an epoch. Up to 1932 the world had I seen two consummate milers —W. G. j George running in peerless splendour j in the 'eighties, and Nurmi. Since 1932 | there have been four. Lovelock, of I New Zealand, Beccali, of Italy, Cun-1 ningham and Bonthron, of the United States. They have made the last four years a golden age of miling. Races were arranged between them to which I half the world listened. They became household words among many thousands of people who look no other interest in athletics. They demonstrated with supreme skill the art of running the most scientific of all races. Incidentally, between them they made live new world’s records

i for the mile and the 1500 metres, which is the Continental and Olympic equivalent of the mile, and is fast | displacing it in the United States. Golden Age of the Mile. The golden age really began when Beccali beat Cunningham and Lovelock in the Olympic 1500 metres of 1932, but it was not fully realised until July, 1933, when Lovelock beat Bonthron at Princeton and made a new world’s record of 4.7 3-5 for the mile. Two months later in Italy Beccali beat Lovelock and made a new record for 1500 metres. In 1934 there was a series of five great races in America between Cunningham and Bonthron, at the end of which Cunningham held the still unbeaten mile record of 4.6 4-5. Bonthron held the 1500 metres record and Bonthron had won three races to Cunningham’s two. In July of that year Bonthron came to London and Lovelock beat him in a relatively slow mile by some of the most exquisite, tactical running ever seen. In the following year (1935) Lovelock went to Princeton and beat Cunningham and Bonthron in the first "mile of the century," and this year he beat Cunningham and Bcssali in the Olympic 1500 metres, making a new' world’s record. The final scores in races between the four runners may be stated thus:— Lovelock has beaten Cunningham three times, Bonthron three times, and Beccali once; Cunningham has benten Bonthron six times, Lovelock once, and Beccali once; Bonthron has beaten Cunningham four times, and Lovelock never; Beccali has beaten Lovelock twice and Cunningham twice; Beccali and Bonthron have 'never met. A Supreme Exposition. i The art of these men. ever inciting (each other to greater heights of jachievement, reached its most com|plete and thrilling expression in the Olympic 1500 metres at Berlin. It seemed then, and it seems now to at least one spectator, that in that race he saw for the first time running that was perfect in all its elements—grace, skill, speed, judgment and courage. It. was a supreme exposition by the three .supreme performers, Lovelock. Cunningham and Bessali, who wore first, second and third. It was their greatest triumph and, as one can see now. it was their last, for San Romani was knocking at the door. He finished fourth, and one ought to have known ever in the ecstasy of atching them, that they would never beat him again. The golden age is over. Lovelock has finished; Bonthron has luiished; Cunningham’s powers are waning; Beccali with ten years’, running and three Olympic Games behind him cannot last much longer. The new age stars with San Romani, 19 years old. and the greatest miler in the world to-day. It may be an age as great as the last, or greater; Wooderson. still only 21, may join San Romani before long on heights which the great runners of the past four years never attained. But it will be a different age. for genius is individual and irreplaceable, and though we may sec a greater runner than Lovelock we shall never see one like him again. It should have ended in the sunshine of Berlin rather than this autumn twilight. And yet perhaps it was the right ending for Lovelock to accept the challenge to give the young man his chance of glory, and to win a last victory over the old rival even if he could not withstand the new.