Olympic Cavalcade

OLYMPIC CAVALCADE I have it on good American authority that the Paine brothers scored successes with their revolvers, as did Williams, their lone swimmer, in his event. The English-speaking races had already a strong sporting background and the athletic tradition had been long established at the Public Schools, the Universities and among the clubs. Championships had been instituted . in England by the now defunct Amateur Athletic Club in 1866; those of Ireland in 1873, descending, no doubt, from the old-time Tailtin Games; those of the United States of America in 1876; while the official champion– ships of Scotland go back to the formation of the National Association in 1883. Since 1314, however, the Ceres Games, except for the breaks at the periods of the Great Wars, have been held annually in Scotland. They were founded to celebrate the victorious return of the Fife villagers from the Battle of Bannockburn. In 1832 the first Braemar Gathering had taken place. Queen Victoria was greatly interested in those Games, which were of a professional nature. Those were the days of pedestrianism and when pugilism was just reaching a decline, but professionalism still prevailed in most fields of sport. There were two Scotsmen of that period who were destined profoundly to influence sport, although they still competed for staked bets or cash rewards. They were Captain Barclay Allardice of Ury, who had been educated at Cambridge University, before the Oxford and Cambridge Sports were institu.ted. He lived during the latter part of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. He served as A.D.C. to the G.O.C. ofthe ill– fated Walcheren Expedition. He became famous for his athletic prowess and endurance, and achieved the feat of walking 1000 miles in Iooo hours, that is one mile for every hour, in 42 days. The other man I have in mind is the old Scottish professional, Donard Dinnie, a great runner, wrestler, jumper, pole-vaulter and dancer. He was born in Aberdeenshire in 1837, did his best performances in sport when he was approaching 40 years of age, and at 58 was the acknowledged all-round champion of New Zealand. I mention this circumstance because Dinnie was undoubtedly the man who carried the cult of athletics to the British in the Antipodes, from whence was to come Great Britain's only Olympic Champion in 1896, when the Games were revived at Athens after a lapse of fourteen centuries. England, like America, sent to Athens a more or less scratch team, despite the fact that England had through all the dark ages of athletics been the doyen of the sport and the exemplar to the world. On the track, however, England had but two successes. E. H. Flack, an Australian by birth, but qualified to compete in the Olympic Games because he was a member of the London Athletic Club, won both the 8oo and I 500 metres flat races. In the Official Report of the Vth Olympic Games held at Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912, the editor, writing of the Ist Modern Olympic Games,