Young Athletes in France

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13434, 22 July 1911, Page 12

Young Athletes in France

Iteeent successes of French men in .importaut athletic contests have given a, great impetus to the open-air movement which is sweeping over France. 'Hic defeat of Scotland by France at Kughy football a few months ago was regarded as a tremoudous achievement, and now that. a. Frenchman has carried off the championship of England at lawn tenuis on covered courts and a sixteen-year-old boy has beaten Wilding in Paris there is no limit to the ambitions of the gay nation. The Paris correspondent of the Daily. Mail remarks that British visitors are in the habit of declaring that Paris has changed, but they hardl" realise the nature of the change:. "In the ceaseless stream of humanity, hastening along the boulevards," _ writes the correspondent, "the visitor will see the new race of men that is growing' up in France, clean', welldressed, alert, athletic. lie will notice that with his every visit certain types familiar to him become rarer—the comic opera Frenchman of the eccentric top-hat and butterfly tic, the sallow, lanky French boy of his school days, with bare'legs and erratic ideas of schoolboy honour." The change is due entirely to the new found activity of the nation. In the Paris district alone there are more than twenty Rugby football teams, and in the south, where Kiigtiy is becoming a national pastime, there are over 20U. Some dav "the luuiiig Club or the State Francais will give an. English Association... Football team a drubbing, and then it will be realised that there are considerably more than IUOO "soccer" teams in France and that no fewer thaii-400 of these are in the Paris district. Golf and boxing are the latest sports to .become popular? and Iho French have taken .to .golf with remarkablesuccess. Boxing is forming an import Hit part, of systems of physical culture, which are enjoying, wonderful vogue in France. Ou.tlip running tradk French athletes won high honours many years ago, and, .of course, in motoring and aviation tlivir magnilicent nerve and skill have placed tliPiu iu the highest rank.; Their rapid progress is being watched with interest across the Channel, and their . British friends are welcoming the growing rivilry in their .national spurts.: