Olympic Cavalcade

212 OLYMPIC CAVALCADE When the gun barked, Comes, >yho had been succeeded in the Presi– dency of the O.U.A.C. by Lovelock, dashed into the lead, and for the first lap neither Cunningham, Beccali nor Lovelock seemed to be worrying about who was out ahead. Next Schaumberg, Germany, replaced Comes as pace-maker and Becca:Ii began to move up. Then Cunningham took after them, with Lovelock right on his shoulder, but Ny, Sweden, and SGhaum– berg, Germany, sprinting hard to regain the first two places, relegated Lovelock to the 4th position but failed to replace Cunningham in the lead. In the final lap Archie San Rofnal'li seemed to drop from the blue to join the leaders out in front, but not for long. Lovelock, knowing the finishing ability of his opponents to a nicety, had started a long sprint fully 300 yards from the tape. He tore past Cunningham and Ny to take the lead and Beccali chased him in vain. The Italian defender of the title could neither catch Lovelock nor conquer Cunningham. The man in New Zealand black with the silver fern leaf across the breast threw one glance back to see just how much margin he actually had as he approached the finishing line, over which he literally coasted in World's and Olympic record time for 1500 metres. That was certainly the greatest middle-distance race I have ever witnessed, so I make no apology for giving in full -the placings and the times of the placed men: r. J. E. Lovelock (New Zealand) 3 m. 47·8 s. 2. G. Cunningham (U.S.A.) 3 m. 28·4 s. 3· L. Beccali (Italy) 3 m. 49'2 s. 4· A. J. San Romani (U.S.A.) 3 m. 5o·o s. 5· P.A. Edwards (Canada) 3 m. 50·4 s. 6. J. F. Comes (G.B.) 3 m. 5r·4 s. The first two men had broken the World's record and the first five the Olympic Record of 1932. Lovelock's time was very close, comparatively, to the mile in 4 min. 6 secs. and Comes' time was but 4 secs. slower than the time in which Beccali had beaten him into 2nd place four years previously. . Friday, 7 August, was the first of the two Decathlon days with the semi– finals of the 400 metres Individual event in the afternoon. American hopes were high and pinned to Harold Smallwood, who had travelled from America to Berlin under an ice-pack as an appendix was grumbling. He was out before the racing started, and was in a Berlin hospital getting rid of that grumbling appendix, but there were still the two dark-hued U.S.A. Negr~es, Archie Williams and Jimmy Lu Valle. Great Britain had what looked hke an invincible set-up in Lieut. Godfrey Rampling, R.A., the Cambridge Blue, Godfrey Brown, and Bill Roberts from the North, while Canada_had Bill Fritz and J. W. Loaring to go to make up an all-English-speaking Frn~~ Meanwhile, there were that day 15 starters for the 5000 metres race an of them Don Lash, U.S.A., had broken the 2 Miles record made by Paavo Nurmi in years gone by. He would have, _however, to reckon with the