EVIL SYSTEM

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 627, 4 September 1933, Page 7

EVIL SYSTEM

SCHOOLBOY ATHLETES VICTOR LUDORUM SYSTEM DENOUNCED BY A COACH. STRONG CASE PRESENTED. Most of the secondary schools in Great Britain and New Zealand, and in some other parts of the Empire, have "Victor Ludorum" trophies for competition at their annual sports — ■ trophies for the most poihts gained by individual competitors in a numiber of events. This system has often been assailed by coaches of athletes and by writers on athletics, including many former champions. In the latest number of the "British Olympic Jpurnal," of which he is honorary editor, Mr. A. M. Webster, one of the leading authoritie* on the sport, returns to the charge. Webster, a fine. athlete himself, has been honorary coach to British Olympic teams, and he coached the Bedford team which recently won the British Public Schools Challenge Cup, and of which his son is captain. Bedford has won the cup six times since the war — four times in the past five seasons — and Webster has had a great deal to do with its recent successes. "We must not le.t our budding •Olympic talent burn itself out by too much and too early training and competition," writes Webster. "Therein lies the real danger. Last year I saw an 18-year-old lad run a perfect halfmile in 2.2 2-5, taking 0.61 2-5 for his initial quarter-mile and 0.61 for the second half of the race. If that boy had not taken part in another contest for the rest of the year, it

would have been all to the good, but later I saw him racing two or three times in an afternoon at one handicap meeting after another, during whicb process he was slowly acquii'ing the habit of losing, simply because a firstclass man is seldom given a chance of winning a handicap event. "More recently I have been studying the returns of sports results from the various schools. I should plump j solidly every time, in choosing a J school for a son of mine, for those j institutions at which they have a rule that a boy may not con^pete in more than three events at the annual school sports. "I notice that at the Imperial Ser- ( vice College a boy named Lede.boer j won the 100 yards in 0.10 4-5, 226 : yards in 0.24 1-5, 120 yards hurdles in 0.16 4-5, high jump at 5ft 9*in, and long jump at 20ft OUn. At St. George's Harpenden, W. J. Tyson took the 100 yards in 0.10 2-5, 440 yards in 0.53 2-5, 880 yards in^.12, and the long jump at 19ft llin. At the Leys School, W. N. Sykes took the 100 yards in 0.10 3-5, 220 yards in 0.23 1-5, 120 yards hurdles in 0.16 4-5, the high jump at 5ft 31in, and the shot put at 31ft lOin. "By their performances the boys I have mentioned have proved conclusively that they are exceptionally fine young athletes, Olympic champions in embryo in fact;. but are their parents and the schoolmasters in whose hands rest their athletic destinies wise in allowing such pi'omising youngsters to undertake such an excessive amount of competition within the space of a few short days, and, in one case at least within the period of a single afternoon. "By attempting, and doing, so much a boy is apt to induce a sort of dilatation of the heart, which may not be adjusted for half a year. That is a possibility. What is a definite certainty is that the psychological effect upon the unfortunate boy will be very bad indeed, for he will suffer a sort of mental exhaustion which is even worse than any f orm of physical j strain. . . "I have before me statistics givmg sports results at the majority of our British public schools for the whole of the post-war period, and I cannot j pick out a single case in which the winner of that wicked struggle for the Yictor Ludorum honours — I mean the sort of boy who comes through the school sports with half a dozen victories to his credit — has achieved real distinction in the greater world of open athletic competition after his schooldays were over. "I may possibly he called upon to prove my point in face of all pei formances of R. N. Tisdall. As a boy in Shrewsbury in 1925 Tisdall won the 120 yards hurdles in the very moderate time of 0.18 1-5, the long jump at 18ft lin, the high jump f at 4ft 9 lin, and the shot put at 30ft 9in. In 1931, representing Cambridge against Oxford, he took the 440 yards in 0.51, the 120 yards hurdles m 0.15 lin, the long jump at 23ft 02>in, and the shot put at 40ft 8in, and | could probably have won the low hurdles as well. In 1932 he became Olympic 400 metres hurdles chamnion in 0.51 8-10sec, but was not

allowed the world's record, as ne knocked down the last hurdle. "The case of Robert Tisdall, I think, completely proves my contention. At school his performances were moderate and he contented himI self with winning one race and three field events. Two years then elapsed R between his leaving Shrewsbury and going up to Cambridge, but, even when he made his record of winning four events at the inter-varsity sports, his performances were not up to international standard. In fact, he did not.touch the peak of his perfection until he made the Olympic 400 metres hurdles his main ohjective in tram- | N ing. ' "What happens to these schoolboy ( Decathlon wonders is that in winning I a multiplicity of events they make 1 their muscles heavily unresponsive by : over-strain, they reach the optimum i of their athletic prowess immaturely, | and do not produce the best that is .in them when they really need it ! later In short, the big thrill has i come to them too soon and they are I mentally disinclined for that ^ strict training and modified specialisation | i whereby the great, natural, all-round ! athlete ultimately attains his Olympic laurels. "I am prepared to prove that pomt also. H. M. Osborn, who holds the worid's outdoor high jump record of 6ft 8 l-4in, started his athletic carS eer as a schoolboy miler, with an am3 bition toward Marathon honours, but I after he had made his high jump 1 record he, in the same year, won the i -Olympic high jump and Decathlon, 9 • setting a new world's record mark in i the latter event, but being content 1 with a more moderate performance ^ in the high jump. Conversely Tisdall,

in the year of running the fastest 400 metres hurdles race ever seen, was placed seventh in the Olympic Decathlon. In other words, the allround ability was there in both cases, j but specialisation was necessary for the production of the world's record."