SPORT AND WORLD PEACE.

Shannon News, 15 July 1924, Page 4

SPORT AND WORLD PEACE.

A SIGNIFICANT INCIDENT. On a Sunday in'March of the present year a Gorman cyclist, Wittig, came to Baris to take part in a great international cycle race. He was the first German to take part in any sporting event in France since tlie war. On the same day a French cyclist was racing in Berlin (writes Philip Baker in the ‘Empire Review/) Wittig did not win his race in Paris lie was third: bat he received a great ovation from the Parisian crowd for a plucky light.. After the race he was presented by his French - hosts with a wreath of flowers, and this wreath ho laid on th 0 . memorial erected to the French cyclists who fell fighting against Germany in the Great War. His action provoked,as i t was bound to do, tho liveliest comment in. the French Press.

In answer to the journalists who ir.terviewed him, Wittig said that ho had laid the wreath on the memorial to thb fallen cyclists of France partly because he was a pacifist who hated all bloodshed and believed in the friendship of democratic peoples, parity because' the cyclists to whom'the memorial was erect 'd where men I whom: he had known end respected, 'and against whom he had raced in the !happy days before the war. He added that ho was certain 1 lmt his action would be approved by the vast masses of his <fo!low.-councrymeu. | These interviews, to anyone who [knows the Paris Rress, were romarka[Die enough. But they led to something still more- remarks ble. For they .’were followed by articles by leading j sporting writers demanding that the authorities in control of the Olympic Games should invite Germany to I take part in the Games in. Paris this year, and urging that “in sport, as in .art, there is 110 country.”

j This incident of Wittig’s - race and ; its- sequel have more than the passing interest of a picturesque Continental .'cycle meeting. For' they constituted what is undoubtedly the first genuine act of spontaneous reconciliation be|tween the common people of, France land Germany since 1914. • It was no accident that this first (act of reconciliation came from the {sporting democracy of the two countries. It is just because it was no accident that the incidents are hero recalled. For the essence of all the .arguments which have ever bjreu urged against the Olympic Games is that -international sport leads to International quarrelling and discord.x