AMATEUR ATHLETICS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 279, 25 November 1936, Page 4

AMATEUR ATHLETICS

NOTES FROM THE RUNNING TRACK

< unipctilions at the Wanganui Amateur Athletic and (yciing Club s weekly twilight sports meetings at Cook’s Gardens suggests that the present season should be a successful one.

Much enthusiasm Is being displayed and several new members have made an appearance on the track. * * * * Inter-club events between the Wellington and Wanganui Clubs are to be held at an electric light meeting at Cook's Gardens on December 12. A feature of the programme will be a sack race' for members of the two clubs. Estonia was lhe real winner of lhe Olympic Games, and Finland the real winner of the track and field events, according to computations by Charles D. Snyder, professor of experimental physiology at Johns Hopkins UniverHe divided the total number of points won, 553, by the total population of the 25 countries which scored them, obtaining a factor 0.986, representing lhe distribution of points for each million of population. With this and lhe population of each country of the countries, hr arrived at its “ideal” score. The ideai score for Estonia was 1.15 points, but it scored six, which was 522 per cent, of the ideal score, and put Estonia at the top of the list of countries ranked according to how well they dia in relation to ideal scores. After Estonia came Hungary, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Norway, Holland, Switzerland, and then in ninth place Germany, which scored the great number of 134, and made 195 per cent, of its ideal score. The United States, with 64.8 per cent, of its ideal score, stood fourteenth. * • 1 * * In track and field events, Finland scored 1776 per cent, of its ideal score, Germany stood eighth with 150 per cent., the United States ninth, with just 100 per cent., stood thirteenth. ♦ * # * Much has been heard of the ill-ef-fects suffered by athletes who have been brought up on grass tracks and then compete on hard cinder tracks, but a very practical example is offered by the case of J. Metcalfe. Australian jumper. Metcalfe has brought

j back to Australia painful evidence of : jumping on cinder tracks when not used to them. His left ankle is decidedly out of alignment, following on the jarring it received in Berlin and doctors are dubious about the great athlete's future. , A photograph taken of Metcalfe’s I ankles shows how the left one has be- • come crooked. Metcalfe has nnt al- ; lowed himself to become worried and .is concentrating upon his training, (working himself into form. But he lis by no means certain that, lhe injured ankle will stand up to the strain 'of high jumping. j There is another aspect of this ankle injury. Both Australia and .New Zealand are sending their athj lotos overseas to international games {and making them risk injuries such las Metcalfe's. It is unfair to send > men away before they have had the {opportunity of preparing on cinder {tracks in their own countries. ♦ * ♦ # | Although times and performances tat the Auckland Athletic Centre’s first {scratch meeting of the season at the ’New Lynn ground were nothing remarkable, they were, considering the : soft and heavy nature of the quarter- ■ mile clay track and the overgrowth of grass on the inside sprint course, really very satisfactory. Although the retirement from competition of N. F. Cooper was announced last, year, the former brilliant. miler and three-miler and New {Zealand cross-country representative l made a reappearance on Saturday to win both the A grade mile and deadheat for first in the B grade quartermile. Cooper has gained considerably in weight and may now find it difficult to reduce to correct racing trim. He still retains all his former balance, and power in the straight, however, and if he can overcome the difficulty of weight he will take a power of beating in the championships. It is not yet known whether J. W. Savi- | dan will run on the track, but it ' would be a fine thing to see the Savi-dan-Cooper duels over three miles re(vived

Incidentally, the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games cost Germany 775,000.000 marks. Her Hitler, however, asked for the figures on what a single battleship would cost, and was informed that the price was approximately 1000 million marks. Whereupon, he declared that the Olympics were worth more than a single battleship, and should be done up In style. The upshot has been an unbelievable athletic renaissance in Germany.