THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4761, 8 October 1924, Page 2

THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

ABE THEY A FAILURE I in a recent issue of the London Times concerning the future of the Olympic Games, the conclusion reached by the writer was that the games as an international fixture were doomed. The other side of the picture is here presented by Mr P. J. Baker, whose remarks below are taken from “ The Nation. ’ Mr Baker is one of the most noted figures in sport Oxford and Cambridge have yet produced. A middle-distance runner of the highest claes, he represented Great Britain on the track of the Olympic Games of Stockholm (1912) and Antwerp (1920). At Stockholm he undoubtedly secured Great Britain’s win in the the 1500 metres by a feat of pace-making for the great Oxonion, A. N. S. Jackson, which has become a classic in the history of the Olympic Games. Eight years later at Antwerp he was still good enough to run second in the same event. His greatest athletic work, however, has been done off the track. As President of the Cambridge University Athletic Club, and later as one of the chief men in the Archilles Club, he was greatly responsible for arranging that annual interchange or visits between Oxford and Cambridge and the greater American Universities that has done immeasurably more than anything else to bring about the present sporting fellowship of the two nations. His captaining the British team at two successive Olympiads is a striking tribute to the esteem in which he is held in England. “It may be hoped that this is the last attempt of those who have tried by tittle-tattle and misrepresentation tp compromise or to destroy a great international, adventure. We thought they had done their worst at Stockholm. They’ invented there incidents and squabbles on the track when no such incidents took place. Eight yeans later they showed a disposition to try the same thing at Antwerp. This year they have definitely abandoned the track —their case was too plainly hopeless ; and they have coi-. centrated instead on the lesser sideshows —fencing and boxing, to wit. And in their anxiety to make a case they have thrown all cautiojn to the winds. We were told, for example, not as a rumour or a report, but as a fact, that after a certain boxing match all the British and American boxing authorities had joined in informing the Olympic Committee of their official withdrawal from'all future games. No withdrawal of this statement was made until we heard a tew days later from the chairman of the British Olympic Association, Lord Cadogan, that the matter had never even been discussed either; by his association or by the boxing associations of Great Britain or America. Again, we were told that throughout the whole series of Olympic contests the American teams had been pursued with rel,entless unfairness and hostility by the French public and the French Olympic Judges; they were held up to us as sporting martyrs ; yet the chairman of the American, Olympic Association, Colonel Thompson, says to an interviewer: ‘There has been much unnecessary and undue criticism made of the conduct of the Olympic Games. II one wants to look for flaws in any kind of an undertaking it is an easy matter. I have only the best words for the affair. 1 want it stated, and you can maK3 it as strong as you wish, that L as president of the United States Olympic Committee, feel that the United States has no reason io find fault.’ “A case which rests on reckless allegation and low-minded gossip happily destroys itself. But there is. one point about this case which must cause profane amusement to those who care about the Games. Before the war the Americans were always the villains of the piece. It was they who tripped and spiked their opponents or tried to beat the pistol at the start. I do not forget the warnings we were given when we invited a Yale and Harvard team to come to Queen’s Club in 1911. Since then every British Olympic team has •fraterniised’ with its American opponents ; we have had the great relay matches between America and the Empire ; and now, as a direct result, it is. possible for our opponents to hold up the spirit of ‘English-speak-ing’ friendliness and sport as a bright contrast to Olympic darkness. It is now the ‘Continentals,’ and particularly the French, who have ystill to learn their sporting manners, whose ways are so repugnant that we cannot even meet them on the field of play.

“In all essentials the thing is nonsense. The spirit of the British-Ame-rican relay matches is the spirit of the Olympic Games. Both have done much this year to create in thosa who saw them, and still more in thoise who took part in them, a feeling of respect and admiration for the teams of other countries. As an instrument of international goodwill, no less than as a great'sporting festival, the Games have more than justified the hopes fixed on them.”