Athletics of To-Day 1929

- -- - Athletics of To-day and his beautiful, free-moving, machine-like action pleased the crowd mightily. After that race, and having regard to statis– tics, no man dared predict whether Frenchman or Finn would win Olympic laurels in the following year. Our own hope was that George Hutson, English champion in rgrz, would find some great running at s,ooo metres, and that E. Glover and W. Scott would be there or thereabouts at double the distance. America had a good contender in G. V. Bonhag, who had won national titles at five and ten miles. As things turned out, Hannes Kolehmainen was to prove himself the outstanding feature of a great festival. I was new to Olympiads then, for Stockholm was only my second, although have since been to Antwerp, Paris, and Amsterdam, but even then I had seen some great distance runners, but Kolehmainen was different, because he was the next best thing to in xhaustible. He had taken up running because he had read interesting accounts of previous Olympiads, and he had trained himself on what he had read in books. He was amaz– ingly unassuming, but his wonderful smile and his whole-souled enthusiasm endeared him to all of us. The h ats and final of the ro,ooo metres h won so easily, the latter in 31 mins. zot secs., that he was able to wait and watch the second man finish. His heat of the 5,ooo metres he walked away with, but the final was a differ nt matter. Bouin, onhag, and Hutson pushed him hard the whole journey, but that long stride of the little man, which came from spring and not from striding out, wore them all down, until the Englishman and American were dropped, and Bouin, losing his form, was brought back and pass d, with the Finn winning in 14 mins. 36! secs., while Hutson finished ahead of Bonhag. These were both Olympic records, but the Finn was not through yet, for he won his heat in the 3,000 metres Team Race and finished first in the 8,ooo metres ross- ountry race. In rgzo, having served right through the War, he went to Antwerp and won the Marathon Race of z6 miles 385 yards, and ran again at Paris in 1924. The post-War period has produced such good distance men in