Olympic Cavalcade

106 OLYMPIC CAVALCADE for ISt, 2nd and vd places at the Games. In 1906, and again in 1914, two Americans had made and equalled the world 100 yards record of 9·6 secs.; between 1896 and 1914 five Americans had made and equalled the world's 220 yards record of 21·2 secs. Bernie Wefers had in 1896 covered 300 yards in 30·6 secs~ Up to the end of the First W0tld War the Mercersburg school– bpy, Ted Meredith, had two world records to his credit, those for 440 yards in 4T4-secs. -and 88o yards in 1min. p·2 secs. N·orman Taber had recaptured the One Mile record of 4 mins. 12·6 secs, but from Two Miles in 9 mins. 9·6 secs. to 25 miles in 2 hrs. 29 mins. 21·4 secs. all the distance records still stood tQ the credit of Great Britain. At the metric distances, over which the Olympic contests are decided, however, great performances had beet). recorded by athletes from Finland, Sweden, Franee·and the U.S.A. At race walking Englishmen, Canadians and the Danish athletes, Rasmussen and Petersen, were supreme. Canadians and Americans held all the world'_s hurdling and most of the field events records for jumping and throwing. - There were, however, uneasy feelings in-the minds of the punClits that an Olympic Celebration at Antwerp would supply many surpris~s ana prob– ably a few new records. There were rumours, too,. of things seen in the Pershing Stadium in_Paris and of- amazing jumpers from ·as far off as Australia and the Argentine. - - . ~- Unperturbed by rumours, alarums ·and e~cursions, the Rev. R. S. de Courcy Laffan went steadily forward with his p lans for th_e particjpation of Great Britain. H€ interested a s many of th.e pre-war stalwarts as were still available and the ·remnants of the Duke of Westminster's Olympic Appeal Committee, and _a real ~cr].lsade was- launchea: at the Public Scl:iools; while former -champions gave their serv:icesglatl.ly as amateur coaches. But, good and willing as "\yere those ·amateurs, the nee_ds for professional coaches be– came more_and-more evident when one considerec:l the successes Alec Nelson was prm{~ing ~:With his C.U.A.C. team and Sam -Mussabini for~t:he Poly– teGhnic Harriers. To typify_t}le_spirit in which the revival of the Games at the VIIth Olympiad -was approached by the nations which hitherto had led the whole world in ev.:ery fori:n of sport, let me quote , first, from the Introductiop. whic~ the late. Sir Ariliur Conan Doyle wrete for a book on field events which I wrote about at that time: He said: - ~ "The present time_ is a very critical one for British Athletic Sport. It is abundantly d ear· that in international competitions there are only two possible courses for this country to follow~ the one being to cease to compete_and the other to take the-matte;- more seriously and to adopt those scientific methods which are used by the athletes ofother nations. "There a_i e some ofus (good sportsmen too) who in their dislike to tlzf! over– ~ specializati~n ~of_ sport~ and to th-e undue cf!sire·for victory encouraged 'by such