The Olympic Games and the Duke of Westminster's Appeal

'l'HJ!J OL Y~MPIC GAJlll.itS . 5 country except t he United States is 1~urely o.bsW'd, the foct boinrr tho.t the bulk of t he points scored by other countri~s wore in branches of sport which aro ho.rdly practised in E ngla nd, or in events in which ~vo did not seriously compote. That we were systematic– ally, or ovon frequ~nt ly! l,cut!'ln by any ot,hers tho.n Americans in the things 111 wluch we a.re o.ccustomcd to take part is quite untrue, a lthough one exception must be mado in favour of t he Long-Distance running of Hannes K oh lorno.incn, of F inlo.nd, who was seri– ously challenged on.ly by J . Bouin, t ho Froncluno.n, and t hat only nt one d istance. As for other countrie , t he regularity wit h which, o.ftor t he prelirn.inary and semi-final heats in t he t rack events, whothor t ho dfata.nce was Jong or short, the smvivors for the fino.1~ wore confined to American and B ritish ropresonto.tivos became monotonous. Ho.cl it not been for H . Bram, and R. Rau, of Germany, t horo m ight, in effect , have been no other than the t wo Anglo-Saxon nations compet ing. The ono rwm.ing event in wh ich Sweden or any other country a.chiovod success wo.s in the Cross-Country nm, in wh ich the com e a nd conditions were a lmost ludicrously unlike those which we associo.te with that event in England. " To to.lk of any other country than the U nited States as being on 1.1, par, or nearly on a pa r, with us in the track events (always excepting H. Kohlemainen) is nonsense. The exasperating thing was that, being, as we were, so easily second, om· men, for mere lack of t eaching, should have been made to seem almost like children by comparison with the American runners, when, in proper hands, rightly trained and told how to run, there was no reason whatever why the British athletes as a b ody shonld not have been a better ' pack ' than the Americans or have divided honours with them at least evenly." This refers, it will be seen, only to the track events. 'fhe British performances in the Games in general will be more closely analysed later. It is sufficient at present to note in general terms that the running events at Stockholm (still ex– cepting Kohlemainen and Bouin) were on the whole a duel between the United States and Great Britain (or the British Empire). At long distances we showed an immense superiority over the Americans. At short distances they completely wiped us 'out. In such Stadium events aa the javelin, discus, and standing jumps (with the pentathla) which we do not practise, we neither expected to win, nor did we win, a point. What _ _ _ . ~ost-discreditable-is-that-the:...l:Jnited- Kingdom– also failed to win a point in either of the running jumps, .in the weight, hammer, or pole vault. MlSOELLANEOUS SPORTS. In the miscellaneous competitions outside the Stadium we did very much better than the United States. Taking the Swedish system of marking, the comparison is a.s follows :- U .S.A. U.K. 1Empiro. Stadiwn events 87 15 I 28 Other sports 42 61 00 120 76 118 But it has to be remembered that we competed in these " other sports " on a much larger scale than did the {lnited States. While there were only 290 American entries in them there were 314 from the United Kingdom and 193 from the rest of the Empire, or 507 n,ltogether. But so far from Great Britain being " decadent " or " degenera.te,.!!– there was nothing to show that we are not still the best all-round athletic people. BRITISH LACK OF 0RGANIZA'l'ION. The exasperating thing (to quote from Tlte 'J',imes Special Correspondent's article reproduced nbove) " was that, for mere lack of teaching, our. men should have been made to seem almost like ehildren by comparison wHh the American runners." Th is " lack of teaching" was only one mani– festation of the generally slipshod way in which we competed n,t Stockholm. Nor is that any new th ing. A gl11nce back to the table on page 4 will show that the United Kingdom is not im– proving its position in the chief Stadium events. Omitting the year when the Games were held in London, in the first two meetings we scored four firsts out of a total of 20, and in the last two we scored only one out of 39. This is only the in– evitable result of slackness which grows only more slack when all the rest of the world is becoming much keener and taking the Ga.mes more a.ncl more seriously. As long ago as 1906 the Special Correspondent of The T irnes, who was at the intermediate Games tit Athens, wrote :- Oun SLAC~ ~ESS IN 1906. " The truth is tha1, a' iota! absence of or~anization marked t.ho arrangements for British representatives at the Go.mes. In fact there were no arrangements at all, and t he traditional English principle of leaving everything to individual effort and initiative was rigidly adhered to. In striking contrast was the excellent provision made for many of the foreign teams ; the American, for instance, arrived in ~ood time, accompanied by a trainer and physicmn ; they found o. comfortable house prepared for them and proper arrangements made for diet, baths, and all the equipment of an athletic establishment. Their training, continued regularly until the last moment, and the series of victories which they, the Scandinavians, and others achieved must be attri– buted to these sensible and, indeed, indispensable precautions. Owing to the apathy prevailing in England 110 real effort was made-to-secure-adequate----– l3ritish representation on this interesting occasion." (The Tim1JB, May 6, 1006.) IN 1908. At the Games of 1908, in spite of the huge tot.a.I of points which we sco~ with the assist.a.nee of being the Home Country, our want of organization, especially in the lack of proper training of our competitors in the running and field events, was no less apparent. The Special Correspondent of Tlte Tim.ea, summarizing the results of the Ga.mes, then wrote :- " Ill many cases our men were as children beside the athletes of th!l United States. Or, to put it differently, they were as ~mateurs compared with professionals. They have not been so well taught. In many cases they have not been taught at all, but run and jump and throw the hammer and the weight simply by the light of nature. • . • Our hap· hazard methods of training have served very well as