PAGEANTRY AT THE BASIN RESERVE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 39, 21 March 1940, Page 38

PAGEANTRY AT THE BASIN RESERVE

The National Championships

N the Basin Reserve, which quite failed to redeem its poor reputation as an athletic ground, the National Track and Field Athletic Championships naturally produced no world’s records. The track was no faster than the pessimistic ever expect it to be. Wellington had had no fine weather to stiffen it, and throughout the meeting there was an uncomfortable wind, In the circumstances, the fact that local records were even approached was sufficient reward for the work of a very fine collection of athletes. Even without records, the meeting had its brighter moments. There was a crazy " Mile of the Century," when the field made a slow récord for the first two laps and really startling time for the second half-mile. There were Weichart’s attempts on the pole vault record, first in a fading evening light, and, on the following day, against the wind with the sun in his eyes. This item might have been appreciated more if the pit had been dug nearer the grandstand, or if the competitors had not been forced to jump towards the crowd as well as into the wind and sun because the socket had been put down with no consideration for any of these points. For similar reasons, the broad jump lost all its attraction as an event. It could have been very useful to fill in waits as the programme dwindled and was held up for the arrival of Austin, a Dunedin linotype operator who travelled more than 2000 miles in the training that won him the marathon. The broad jump pit was so dug that people could not see how far the men were jumping. It was impossible to raise interest in it, Boot’s Farewell Performance And there was the half-mile, Boot's farewell performance at a championship meeting. He ran with the perfect judgment to be expected of one who has become a classic runner, and with the classic style of a true champion. There was the three miles, and the impact of young Dickison’s first appearance at a national meeting; his energysaving easy style, his obvious physical fitness, the ease with which he ran away from the field, and the excellent time he made, almost wholly unpaced. There was Tyrie’s justification of his own confidence in his undoubted ability as a quarter-miler, There were Sharpley’s successes in hurdles and sprints, the perfection of the easy effort he made of each co-ordinated movement. There was McCarthy's walking.

The Olympic Ceremonial There was the relay, with no runner ever more than a yard or two in front of the next man, and Otago’s determined but unsuccessful effort to win the crucial points with Boot in a good position to run the last 880 as he pleased. And there was the Olympic ceremonial, Of all the features of the meeting, this was the most interesting. Its introduction as part of sports meetings had been discussed by the Wellington Centre of the N.Z.A.A.A. following on recommendations from Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay. It had been received, we thought, without a great deal of enthusiasm. And it seemed at the Basin Reserve as if the crowd sportingly co-operated, but not over-enthusiastically, Monotonous It was not, for one thing, carried out as if much enthusiasm had been given to its organisation. As the winners came for their medals after each race, the tiered stand on which they had to pose resembled a little too closely a pile of painted petrol cases. The exhortations of the announcer to the crowd to "Pay ° . Tribute!" sounded a bit like an Alexander Korda picture with Mr. Korda out of touch. The endless jumping up and down on the part of the crowd to pay this tribute every five or ten minutes seemed just a little too much of a good thing. The endless repetition of: the same "fanfare of trumpets" by the cornets of the band, seemed a little too repetitious. The Lighter Touch The monotony was certainly relieved when the child’s half-hose, unwashed, was raised instead of flags after the hilarious boys’ mile walk, and when the instrument case was raised for the bandsmen’s races; but this lighter touch came dangerously near making the serious aspect of the ceremony a little farcical. That sort of thing might be swallowed whole in some countries. It might even go down here if the athletes were prepared to lend themselves to making it into a glorified open air revue. But athletes will not do this, and New Zealanders have not yet shown much indication that they appreciate the technique of the revival meeting anywhere outside the Gospel tent. The energy put into organisation of this kind would be better employed if it were concentrated on improving ath-

letic standards. Disregarding the war, for a moment, this season has produced a whole crop of prospective recordbreakers, more especially in the distance events. We have not heard of any specific cases of properly organised efforts to help them.