BRIGHTER ATHLETICS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 14, 9 October 1937, Page 17

BRIGHTER ATHLETICS

p, . . . . USE OF LOUD SPEAKERS. How the judicious use of the loud speaker can popularise athletics and make meetings more interesting for the spectators is mentioned by an English writer. He states that for many years he hps ventured to appqal for more. and yet more efforts to. keep. the spectators at athletic meetings interested and iristructed' and it may be 'granted' that recently many effective "steps havebeen taken' in the use of the loud speaker. The personality of the champions and their challengers, their chief feats, and their immediate prospects can Ibe made the intimate possession of J every. one* if the period of waitiqg before the meeting begins and the various rtwaits"- between events are made use of properly. At a recent internationai meeting;- for instance, the spectators were made to know Cornelius Brown, the negro marvpl who clears weli over 6ft. with a greater ease and perfecfion of balance' on landing than most first-class high jumpers can clear 5ft. lOin. High jumping, generally pne of the most neglected of fhe field events, wps h'elped to "live." Varpff, "the holder of a world's record at pole vaulting did not, as it happened, help the loud speaker, but the r oars that went up "when "he started and f aiie'd at 13ft.—. a height at which all but the 'eventual Wiiyier fsiiled— showed how closely his6 efforts were followed. More should be said abopt th'e jayelin throwers and the men who make. almost incredibiy long leaps. Athletics, indeed, have many advantages in the matter of dramatic presentation, apart from the procession of competitors and their national flags, which can be pverdone. One of the essentiai things is that the programme and the dissemination of information, .personal and technical, shall run in harness and in step. Here there is r'obm for considerable improyement and a further use of imagination. .