Olympic Cavalcade

OLYMPIC CAVALCADE Stallard and Douglas Lowe; of Paul Martin, Switzerland; Charlie Hoff, the Norwegian pole vaulter, who would be out of that event on account of a damaged ankle, and the English club runner H. Houghton. Stallard was the British first string, having won the A.A.A. Championship title from Lowe in I min. 54t secs., which showed that a fast time would be required to beat him, and he did not, in fact, win the race. Actually he was suffering from some affection to one of his feet. At 6oo metres he seemed to have the race well in hand, because we knew that in the ordinary course of events he was a remark– ably fast finisher. But when challenged by Enck it became obvious to experi– enced eyes that his normal finishing speed was not available. Suddenly Douglas Lowe, seeing that Stallard was weakening, took up the running, staged an electrifying ;;tretch sprint, with Paul Martin, Switzerland, right at his shoulder, and drove on to victory, while Paul Martin, coming with him, deprived Enck of 2nd place. Stallard, now staggering, finished 4th, ahead of the other three U.S.A. representatives, with Hoff8th and Houghton, of Great Britain, 9th. We had all looked for a startling time, and Lowe gave it to us with I min. 52·4secs., which was within half a second of the World's and Olympic record of I min. 5I"9 secs. set up by Ted Meredith, U.S.A., at Stockholm in I912. Edgar Mountain, too, represented Great Britain at this Olympiad, but stumbled and almost fell in the third heat of the semi-finals and so was put out of the race. The fourth day of competition, Wednesday, 9 July, brought the Italians, Ugo Frigerio and Donato Pavesi, tWo Englishmen, a Colonial and a Swiss, but no Americans, right into the limelight. The affair of the IO,ooo metres Walk was one more notable example of how speed racers should not walk rather than a display of perfectly fair heel and toe technique. Frigerio, lapping all his field save G. R. Goodwin, ofGreat Britain, whom he beat in the Final in 47 mins. 49 secs., was followed home in 4th place by his compatriot, D. Pavesi, and F. E. Clark, of Great Britain, finished 6th. The track had been softened by a morning rain and I saw the survivors fQr the final of the 200 metres looking at it with some anxiety. These sur– vivors were Paddock, Scholz, Hill, ofPenn, and Bayes Norton, ofYale, for the United States; Eric Liddell, of Scotland and Edinburgh University, a theological student who had refused to compete in the IOO metres because · the preliminaries were held on the Sabbath; and Harold Abrahams, who had already won the IOO metres. Paddock went into that race fully determined to ~etrieve the reputation he had made at Antwerp as an Olympic champion when he won the 100 metres Sprint. It was on Abrahams, who had already beaten him at the shorter distance, that Paddock determined to keep a watchful eye. Paddock, therefore, was first out of his holes as usual and, leading all the way, seemed to have everyt.hing under control and victory within reach as he neared the tape. In that split second he made the fatal mistake of turning his head to see where his rivals, and particularly Abrahams, were coming, but