THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9120, 20 June 1908, Page 4

THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

A cablegram on Thursday last stated that over 1,200 entries had been received for the Olympic Games at London. These- Games are to be the fourth of a series inaugurated at Athens in 1896 by the International Olympic Committee. The president of this committee (Baron Pierre ce Cojbertin) started the modern Olympic movement by proposing to revive the Olympic Games under conditions suited to the mo Jem world. The games are held every four years in some great city, and include all forms of spurt which have an international character. The games have been held at Athens (1896), at Paris (1900), and at St. Louis (1904). The British Olympic Association was founded in 1905 to ensure British co-opera-tion in Great Britain with the Inter national Olympic Committee. The council of the association have contracted with the Franco-British Exhibition to erect at Shepherd's Bush, on the Exhibition Ground, a magnificent stadium capable of accommodating 70,000 spectators. The centre of the stadium is a turf arena 700 ft in length and 300 ft in breadth. Round this arena a running track has been laid, and outside this again is a cycling track. Uunning alongside the arena is a swimming pond 100 metres in length, with a deep spice in ths middle for high diving and water polo. The games to be celebrated in, the stadium will bJ divided into two parts. The main Olympic Game*, opening on July 13th, 1903, which will include athletics, cycling, feicing, gymnastics, archery, swimming, and wrestling; and the winter games, opening on October 19th, and including football, hockey, and lacrosse. There will, further, be many competitions which cannot be held in the stadium —e.g., an Olympic regatta at Henley, rifle and pisto shooting at BLsley, yachting at Cowes, motor racing at Brooklands, polo at Hurlingham. golf at Sandwich, and lawn tennis, racquets, and tennis at Queen's Club.