POT POURRI OF SPORT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 6, 22 January 1937, Page 12

POT POURRI OF SPORT

' OMNI. ' ')

(BY '

IChannel Swimming. Plans for Channel swimming attempts have to be made a long time ahead. Already at least one swimmer has decided to go to England next summer and try to conquer^ the Channel. She is Miss Bani Das, a 12-years-old Bengali girl, who is deseribed as the swimming sensation o£ India. FootbaJler-Athlete. T. Pauling, a mernher of the Australian Rugby team wixich toured New Zealand last season, must have ' recovered from the effects of the severe concussion he sustained in the first test match at Wellington. Last Saturday week he participated in the New South Wales ama.teur athletic championships. He filled third place jn ±he discus throw event with a good effort of 128ft. l|in. N.Z, Bowling Titles. No fewer than 10 previous singles titieholders were seen on the green at the Dominion bowiing championships held in Wellington last week, They were as follows, the ye.ar being given in parentheses: — E. H. Fountain (1916) ; C R. Ingram (19917) ; W. Foster (1918, 1926) ; J . M. Brackenridge (1921) ; W. Carswell (1924, 1934) ; J. D. Best (1925) ; J. Scott (19298, 1932); W. M. Parkhouse (1933)'; A. J. Engebretsen (1935) ; F. Livingstone (1936) . * Olympic Boxing. A suggestion that either the judging system should be improved or nonparticipation at Tokio should be considered is contained in the report submitted to the South African Amateur Boxing Association by F. W. Rostron. official adviser to the South African boxing team at the Berlin Olympiad. "I believe the only solution," he says, "is to appoint, say, six officials who have proved themselves at a previous Olympiad, and let tbem, irrespective of nationality, referee all the bouts " Cricket Phenomenon. To take "two wickets with consecutive balls and then see the next ball chopped on to the wicket without moving* the bails is heartbreaking for a bowled. That happened to Miss Y. Belworthy in the women's senior cricket competftion in Christchurch. But the Mai Moa left-hander had consolation for ber missed "hat-trick" in her excellent figures for the day — 15 overs, 12 maidens, three runs, five wickets— against Technical Old Girls, leading team in the competition. Swimmers' ^raining. Invercargill swimmers who were waining for the New Zealand senior championships have been greatly hindered by the measures taken there to check infantile paralysis . The municipal baths have been closed for several weeks. Among the swimmers who have been eompelied to suspect their preparations entirely are Miss N, Basstian, holder of the 100 yards ladies' backstroke championship of New Zealand,

and P. R. Malthus, who was runnex-up in the 880 yards men's free-style event at Dunedin last February, and third in fche 440 yards and one mile. Swimming Starts. The enforcement of the "standing" start for swimming races is now the general rule in the United Siates, according to Mr. F. Cady, manager of the world' s champion, Jack Medica, who was a visitor to Auckland. This system of starting was introduced to , abolish the defects of what was known as the flying start. Tests made by means of several watches had shown that when swimmers plunged from the starting board in this manner they had forestalled the command by from .7s to 1.2s. Competitors wcr© now required to stand a pace back from the board, and to move forward at an order by the starter. It was imperative that they were not . permitted to lean or crouch forward before fhe command "go." Responsibility for two false starts incurred disquqalification. Badminton Champion. A well-known Bedfordshire badroin-. fcon player, G. D. R. Goodall, five times champion of his county, has just become the first South African singles champion. Goodall won the titi© at Johannesburg, where the game is spreading rapidly. -J ohannesburg is 13,000 feet above sea level, and players there have to adapt their style to the strange conditions. Goodall says that the rapid flight of the shuttle at high altitudes prevents playersi mastering the fundamentals of the strokes. What happens is that the shuttle travels too fast in the rarefied air. Jack Crawford and Adrian Quist, the Australian lawn tennis stars, had much the same thing to say about the flight of the tennis ball when they played in Johannesburg. In the case of badminton, officials are alive to the problem and have been in communication with manufacturers with a view to obtaining shutties of slower flight. Cricket Records. Answering a correspondent a writer in a Melbourne paper says: The match in which W. R. Hammond scored 336 against New Zealand was called a test match, but de do not know whethei it was oflieially regarded as such by the M.C.C., which deeides such questions. So far as we know there is no body which is considered "the official records authority" for cricket. Third Cricket Test. A Melbourne writer says - that the most extraordinary thing about tbe third cricket Test was the amazing attendances, which left all previous records far behind. What will happen if the two countries should meet in the fifth Test with two wins each one eannot imagine. One should say that even the greatly enlarged accommodation provided on the ground will be severely taxed, even if it is adequate for the occasion.