Athletics of To-Day 1929

122 Athletics of To-day 2 hours, 52 mins. 54 secs. and of El Ouafi, 2 hours 54 mins. rgf secs. Why we should have imagined that his rivals would not improve equally with Ferris, who made great progress in the period of four years, I cannot tell; but in England in rgz8 there was shown a good deal of confidence in the ability of Ferris to win at Amsterdam. H. Payne had proved himself quite as good as Ferris, and Ernest Harper, the old ten miles and cross-country champion, had trained on nicely. Joie Ray, America, like Kolehmainen before him, was looking for fresh worlds to conquer, and Canada had two real good men in J. C. Mills and Cliff Bricker. What none of us reckoned with was the fresh generation of Finns, the new prow ss of Japan, and the vastly improved form of the men that F rris had beaten four years earlier. To make matters worse for Great Britain, the A.A.A. decided not to recognise the Polytechnic Marathon as the English hampionship, as had be n done in th pr vious years, and the R gent Str et lub refus d to abandon its fixture . There was also the Northern Marathon, and so we had the absurd position of three gru lling Marathon races b ing held within the space of three months before the Games, and some of our b st men, but not Ferris, took part in all of th m. One cannot wonder, ther fore, that they could not r produce their best form at Amsterdam. Had Payne r frain d from com– peting in the A.A.A. hampionship, which he won in July, I think he might have b en very near to victory in Holland, but he had had two trem ndous struggles within three months and the edge was off his keenness. The rgz8 Olympic course was a fairly asy one, run over level country, though the roads w re rough in parts, but this did not bother El Ouafi, who ent r d the contest inured to hardships, heat, and rough going. Th Engli hm n on the other hand had a good deal of trouble with their feet. With eighteen miles covered the two Japanese, K. Yamada and H. Isuda, were well to the fore followed by M. B. Martellien, Finland, cc Chesty" Joie Ray, America, and Ernest Harper,