Athletics of To-Day 1929

Putting the Shot on to beat soft. and a year later finally hall-marked his career by recording sr ft. As yet no one other than an athlete of the English-speaking nations had won an American or English title, although we had seen some remarkably promising Finns in London in rgo8, and a likely Hungarian in I. Mudin. At the Stockholm Olympiad, rgr2, the Scandinavians were expected to be well to the fore, especially in the additional event in which the best put right hand was to be added to the best put left hand to arrive at the winning aggregate. Rose, in the years between, had increased in weight up to 20 stone and although only twenty-six years of age was said to be getting stout. And certainly he had a Falstaffian paunch, which swung before him as he progressed acros the circle, but the added weight did not seem to me to have impaired his form to any marked degree. In the best hand event America took four out of the first half-dozen places. P. MacDonald, who had won the last two American Championships, put so ft. 3 1 Q 0 ins., as against Rose's so ft. of in., but Finland supplied the fourth man in E. Niklander, 44 ft. gi ins.. the Hungarian I. Muclin, was sixth at 42 ft. o 3 0 in., and the first Britisher was the Irish champion, P. Quinn, who was placed eighth at just over 4I ft., a full2 ft. below his proper form. In the two hands aggregate contest Rose took his revenge upon MacDonald in a terribly close contest, which resulted– Rose, right hand 4g ft. 6.s ins., left hand, 40ft. ro.g ins. = go ft. 5.4 ins. ; MacDonald, right hand, 4g ft. S·7 ins., left hand, 40 ft. ro-,f 0 ins. = go ft. 3}~ ins. ; while E. Niklander, the Finn, was third at 8g ft. o.os ins. Niklander had done well also in both discus events, and it occurred to me at the time, with a sort of admiration not unmixed with anger, that America was moving heaven and earth to master the intricacies of the almost purely Scan– dinavian event, while the Scandinavians were striving equally hard to get the hang of the shot put, but Great Britain was standing aside and making no attempt whatsoever to make her men efficient in any one of the four throwing events, two, if not three, of which had had their origin in British soil.