INTERNATIONAL SPORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 June 1938, Page 7

INTERNATIONAL SPORT

DUTY TO ATTAIN FITNESS. OLYMPIC GAMES LOSE SIGNIFICANCE. Once sport is recognised frankly as a political instrument, writes Mr E. A. Montague in the “Manchester Guardian,” athletes and footballers will be put in the position of soldiers and airmen; it will become not their pleasure but their duty to the nation to raise themselves to the highest pitch of fitness and skill. That will inevitably mean the end of amateurism in the higher ranks of sport. It has already meant that, to all intents and purposes, in Germany, where certain Army officers were relieved of military duty for several years before the 1936 Olympic Games in order to train for their contests, and in Japan, where the same thing is being done in preparation for 1940 —or was, until Japan found a more urgent use for her- officers. The whole social value of sport will be destroyed and the world’s whole scale of value will become distorted. So far as Britain is concerned there seems to be only one way of escape; to withdraw from the Olympic Games for good and all. They have long lost their original, significance and purpose. When they were revived 'in their modern form in 1896 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, his purpose was threefold. He wanted first to spread throughout the world the social benefits of sport as he had observed them in England and America. That purpose has been fulfilled; all the world plays games now, and would continue to do so if the Olympic Games were stopped today. Secondly, he wished to foster through sport the instincts of nobility and chivalry, and his third purpose he summed up in these words: “Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future: and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of peace will have received a new and strong ally.” Chivalry and peace: those were ideals worth holding; and where —where are they today? Nations send their teams to the Olympic Games to win at any price. The process has gone too far to be reversed. We ourselves have already begun to be contaminated by it. If we want to keep our athletic sanity. is there any solution for us except withdrawal?