Olympic Cavalcade

134 OLYMPIC CAVALCADE Phillip B-aker and the magnificence of our younger generation in the person– alities of lads like ~cigar Mountain and the promise of that brilliant sprinter– long jumper, Harold Abrahams, and despite all that Lawson Robertson might have said in praise of "the greatest group of athletes from America ever assembled -to compete in any set df track and field games", Great Britain also sent abroad perhaps the finest collection of athletic champions we had yet had, and we were to reap our full share of Olympic medals. Ville Ritola was a Finn by birth anCl he it was who gathere-d the first laurels in the Colombes Stadium, for although he had elected to represent his native country he could, had he so wished, have borne the Stars and Stripes on a residential qualification: Personally I have always thought that his decision was based largely upon an instinctive jealousy of the reputation built up by that other great Finnish runner, Paavo Nurmi, before whose flying feet World's records were falling already like leaves in V allombrosa. ·Ritola and Nurmi did-not, however, meet at IO,ooo metres, which Ritola won froni a big Beld on a slow track in tne new World'-s and Olympic _record time of 30 mins. 2J·i secs., which thus cut more than 12 seconds from !he prevrous· record:'Then, to make that opening ~ay a full one for Finland, Jcmni Myrra repeated l}is Antwerp victory-by Throwing the Javelin 206ft. 6£ in. to beat C. Lindstrom, Sweden, who failed by 1! in. to reach ~ 200ft. In this event ~Gene Oberst proved tlie newly -aroused interest of America -in this event by beating 190ft. for 3rd place. Finland, _therefore, had got off to a fast start, but the experienced in athletics knew the United States contingent was getting ready to reclaim the lead from the little Northern nation. On tlie second day of competition Lehtonen, of Finland, -it is true, won the Pentathlon, with :Sonfray, a great Hungarian athlete, 2nd, and the late Bob Legendre 3rd. Legendre was primarily a long jumper:, but his performances in the U.S.A. trials had not entitled him to aplace in the Olympic team. He had, however, made good in the Pentathlon, and it was in the Broad Jump part of that programme that the Georgetown athl€te, whoJater j_oined the Marines and died-on service, eclipsed theWorld's record with qll amazing jump of 25 ft. ()in., which beat, also, the winning -jump of 24ft. 5-! in. with which De Hart Hubbard won the official Long Jump f'l"ofn his-fellow U.S.A. Negro, E. 0. Gour_din, former Worlcf's record - holder, who could produce no more than 23ft. 10t in. For the roo metres Sprint Final, America qualified an electrifying quartette of sprinters all of whom had -either broken -or toud;ed World's record. They were Charley Paddock, Jackson V. Scholz, Chet Bowman and : Loren Murchison. The last-named was one of the unlucky trio who were left on their marksin the IOo metres won byPaddgck at Antwerp fouryears earlier. There were in that Final two ~ther starters both of whom were representa– tives_of the British Empire from the British universities. One was Harold M. Abrahams, of Cambridge University, and the other, Arthur Porritt, of New Zealand and Oxford University. Abrahams won that race, with Stholz