The Sun SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1928. A CALL TO OLYMPIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 270, 4 February 1928, Page 8

The Sun SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1928. A CALL TO OLYMPIA

LADAS, a runner of Laconia, died of a spent heart as they were planting upon his brow the laurels of victory, and long, vague centuries later the men of newer nations crashed into the dust at the heels of Nurmi, prince of athletes, when the Finn set before a startled world new standards of pace and endurance. Set, though they are, at opposite ends of history, both feats will be grouped in the mists of antiquity before men and nations lose their pride in high achievement upon the field of sport. In a day when Ladas and Nurmi are regarded from afar as near contemporaries there will still be races supreme in a greatness founded on the primal element of physical superiority. Change may-by then have encompassed the globe, and a race of superNew Zealanders, virile children of generations vitalised by a tradition of sport, may hold the sceptre of power and shape the destinies of a respectful world. Race after race in the history of mail has been predominant while the physique of its people lasted. Men cast in matchless mould founded in classical enclosures the might of Greece and Rome, and the sway of the sport-loving nations that rule to-day— Britain, America, France, Italy—is menaced only, in trade and industry as in arts and arms, by those other peoples—Finland, Czeeho-Slovakia, Japan—that are concentrating first upon the development of a race of sportsmen. No mail may suggest that the purpose of sport is to range nation against nation in competition for leadership; but history presents to the twentieth century the moral of fallen nations. Vice and corruption sapped the power of Greece and Rome when their warriors were permitted to subordinate games to softer pleasures. The lesson through the centuries has been plain. The preservation of national identity and the independence of the race hang on the enthusiasm and energy with which a people sets about its sport. New Zealanders obey the precept as a matter of instinct. They come of a stock which has elevated to a place among paladins he of the quick eye and enduring sinew and the New Zealand Rugby footballer has a niche in the temple of fame. Thus accredited, the country has set its destiny toward athletic prominence, the development of still higher physical standards among its people, and at the next Olympic Games may test its strength again in the international field. Legend and the printed word come hurrying where there are visions of Olympia. Athens, Paris, London, Stockholm, Antwerp, and Paris again have formed field or stadium for games of the pattern played by the Greeks on the plain of Olympia. There was professionalism in the ancient days, for the victors received not only laurels, but also the support for life of those cities to which they brought honour; but since the revival among modern nations the contests have been conducted to the rigid exclusion of t„ke professional, a practice satisfactory to New Zealand, where amateur standards are exalted. Until time or the drift of peoples swing Olympia to the Pacific, New Zealand must inevitably find representation a costly business. Hitherto the necessary financial arrangements have been conducted in a haphazard fashion —so much so that in 1920 D. C. Hadfield, Auckland sculler, trained at Antwerp under the most restricted conditions; hut this year a body of representative sportsmen is endeavouring to establish a permanent endowment from which future excursions will be financed. Their primary object is to finance the despatch of New Zealand athletes, notably an eight-oared rowing crew, to the coming Olympic Gaines to open at Amsterdam in May. If parochial considerations are an influence, Aucklanders should remember that men from the rowing clubs of the Waitemata may be inchided in such an All Black crew as may, sweeping opposition aside, bring fresh renown to its country. Should the fund, beyond provision for this year, reach the dimensions desired by its organisers, no New Zealand champion need in future be denied his chance of competition with the salt of other nations. In the shadow of St. Matthew’s tower may rise another Ladas, or another Nurmi. Let him have his chance to race.