BRITISH TRAIN FOR OLYMPICS

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5302, 15 January 1947, Page 3

BRITISH TRAIN FOR OLYMPICS

« WINTER TRACK SCHOOL1 i young runners of note adopt holt schedule i|r_ \ LONDON. — Believing that now is the time to start training for the Olympic Games in London in 1948, Mr. Ernest J. Holt, honorary secretary of the Eng-lish Amateur Athletie Association, has persuaded his club to lead the way in Great Britain by pioneering an outdoor winter training school for track and field event athletes. Handicapped by laek of funds and unable to affc-rd national professional coacbes the A.A.A. has to rely mainly on the enthusiasm of amateurs, mostly retired track stars, to fill these posts, and .although the A.A.A. , does promote aii indoor school for field events men residing in the London area, it is left to the clubs to make their own arrangements for the track men. Normally, at the eiul of each season the sprinters and middle-distance men put awav spikes for football boots, but so well has Mr. Holt's outdoor training schems been received that ciuite a number of track stars have deeided to forsake football in order to attend the winter school which the South London Harriers are conducting at their cross-country running headquarters at Coulsdcn, Surrey, writcs Sydney Skilton in the Christian Science Monitor. Head co-ach at the school will be Holt, who, despite all his administfative posts in national and international athletics, still contrives to find time for the club in which he first entered the sport in 1905. Coaching is something comparatively new to hira, but it is a job that has come easily, foliowing a successful career ar a sprinter and years of expericnce in all grades of athletics in many parts oi* the world. His first attempt at organised coaching came during the war years when, with a certain amount. of l'ree time because nationa! athletics had been brought to a standstill, he undertook to train the schoolboys and university students who jcined the South London Harriers. He has now taken over the honorary secretaryship of the International Amateur Athletie Federation, a post 1 c would have been unable to accept had lie not attained the pensionable age and resigned his banking career. Star Pupil is D. Pugh Most successful pupil so far under Holt's methods has been Derek Pugh, who has blossomed into one of Britain's 'brightest .pijospects fcj? the Olympic 400 metres. In his first season of competitive racing this 20 years old London University engineciing student has been coached to victories in . the quarter-mile championships of the Universities Athletie Union and Surrey County and also to third place in the European 400 metres , championship. Pugh's best time, which is expected to improve even more when Holt has taug'ht him to get out of his iioles a ilttle faster, is 48.9 seconds for 400 metres. Other pupils in the Holt school include D. J. Joubert, the 1945 captain of athletics at Cape Town University, South Africa, who has beaten 49 seconds for the quarter-mile; Alan Grieve, now a student at Cardiff University, and ranked as No. 4 among England's 100 yards men while still a junior ; and Geoffrey Dove, winner of the South of England 880 yards championship. Dove, who was captain oi' athletics last season at London University, is about to accept a British Government {>ppointment which will take him to British Guiana for a while. But he is taking a Holt training schedule with him because he plans to continue his athletics in Georgetown, where he will be stationed. Born in London twenty-three years ago, Dove is a negro and reminiscent in style to Johnny Woodruff, the American 800 metres Olympic champion at Berlin 10 years ago. Wooderson Back Another track athlete who will be training this winter is Sydney Wooderson, Britain 's greatest middledistance runner. At the age of 82 and running as well as ever in his 15 years oi" athletics the little London solicitor has said that he has ffnished with first-class racing. But that does not mean he will hang up his spikes. Just the reverse, for in a lettei to me he writes, "Next summei' I shall do ciuite a lot of running but not championship or international runnning, just club and an occasional open mceting. Nothing very strenuous — just running to enjoy myself! I think it would be foolish to give it up altogether after such a long period of activity." So this winter we shail see Wooderson jogging over the country from Blackheath Harriers' headquarters at Hayes, ICent, and it is anticipated that he will be a member of the "Heathens" team for the national cross-country championship at Apsley, Hertfordshire, on March 8, 1947. Meanwhile, the British track season has closed on a distinct Wooderson note. He has been awarded both the Harvey and Jackson Cups by the Amateur Athletie Association. The Harvey Cup goes to the competitor who is adjudged( to have accomplished the best performancc in the championships, while the Jackson Trophy is for the best British champion. Wooderson, it may be recallecl, won the three-mile championship in 13m., 53.2s. to create new British and Eng-lish native records for the distance.