Olympic Cavalcade

THE ATHENIAN CELEBRATION, 1906 5I had not been selected to represent America, bu~ -had scraped up sufficient money to pay his own way and so had been allowed to join the team. The other was Lieut. Wyndham Halswell, of the Highland Light Irifanrry. Jimmy Curran, of Galashiels, was for long one of the most distinguished coaches in athletics at American schools and -_colleges. He was in South Africa with the H.L.I. during the Boer War. There he came across young Halswell. When the battalion was brought back to Edinburgh Castle-, Curran persuaded Halswell to get into training for athletics. He did so and in 1905 won the 440 yards Scottish Championship in 5 I secs, took three– national titles in 19o6, retained those for 100 and 220 yards in 1907 and for 220 and 440 yards in 1~06. - At Athens :Halswell was up against a strong field- Harry Hillman; who ·had won thr,ee gold_medals at St. Lo.11is, Bacon and Moulton, all dis– tinguished U.S.A. runpers, and their compatriot, Paul Pilgrim. There wa-s - also in the final th~ Australian speed merchant, Nigel B~rker. , The speetator-forecast of that great race was that it would be won by– ,Harry Hfllman, a trir,le victor at St. Louis four ye;;trs earlier, fo_llowed home by the great Scoftish aiscovery, Halswell, and the Australian, Barker. These two Britishers staged a great duel to be first East the post as Hillman, not yet fully-recovered from the buffet the wave which hoarded the Barbarossa had given him, gr adually flagged in the home stretch. It looked as if the Scat would prove the stronger finisher and therefore must win. Then came the shock and, incidentally, a further vindication of old Mike Murphy's precept that "It's not much good to a team to have just _one Q-gtstanding champion in each event. You must have another man, very nearly as good, in case the champion breaks down m fails." - Suddenly a slightly built youth seemed to w}ne from the back 0f the' field at amazing sEe€d. He ~ overhauled the Scot and the Aust:ralian, ahd he beat them in a thrilling finish and Halswell was just ahead of Barker. That was Paul Pilgrim, the lad from New York, who had not been picked for the U.S.A., but hag, by dint of scratching and scraping, succeeded in paying his own way to Athens. - What Pilgrim had achieved at 400 metres some people saii:l might be due to no more than the sudden burst of speed induced in a short race by ap ebullient youngster. The very next day those same carping critics were to learn how wt:ol'l.g they wete. Men -with established reputations like Halswell, Scotland; R. P. Crabbe, who had run second in the English -Half Mile Championship the year before, and J. D. lightbody, a triple victor at St. Louis in 1904, wou]d _make mince-meat of yo:ung Pilgrim. The prediction of the knowing ones was _that the result of the 8oo metres Final would be ~etween Crabbe and Halswell, running for England, and 1ightb?dy, U.S.A., the holder of three Olympic -tit!es. Halswell was very strong -and very v;el satile, but at th~ Oxford a_nd Cambridge Sports on 24 March that year, R. P. Crabbe,_C.U.A.C.,hadha.d a terrific struggle,with