BAROMETER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 486, 15 October 1948, Page 28

BAROMETER

FAIR: "The Glory of Sport." DULL: "Casbah."

(continued from previous page) . reminded of the late General Patton and his» armoured divisions). The appearance of the tiny file of New Zealanders drew applause, but a good deal of embarrassed laughter as well, and I felt that somebody should have had somebody’s head on a charger for those appalling ties if for nothing else. We did not see any of the New Zealanders again, but there were, of course, many events which we did not see at all, There were brief glimpses only of the yachting at Torbay, of the cycle races and the events at Henley; and the . swimming * was not given much prominence. Remembering the German film, however, what I missed most of all were the gymnastic events, ‘To watch a flat race, or a broad jump, or even a pole-vault: contested by champions, makes little emotional demand on me-the impression is so often one of. effortless accomplishment. But no matter how skilful a gymnast is my arms will still ache in.sympathy every time he does an upstart on the parallel bars or racks his arms hanging from the rings. As illustrations o/ supreme effort, the shots of the gymnastic events in the German Olympic film stang out supreme in my memory and there is nothing like them in Mr. Rank’s opus. ‘But good drama’ has been made out of the marathon, which is probably the most gruelling event of all-and was on this occasion the most harrowing. The Tace was won by Cabrora, of the Argentine, who ran throughout like a machine. But it was Gailly, of Belgium, a tall, slight youngster who drew the cheers. Gailly led njost of the way, but was obviously im bad shape when he re-entered the stadium, still slightly in the lead. His- knees were sagging, his face was grey with the. agony of effort and ‘his head rolled on his shoulders. Cabrora, his arms swinging like the pistons of a locomotive, overhauled him and left him standing, but still Gailly staggered on. Tom Richards, the Englishman, running strongly, swept past and it seemed as if Gailly was too far.gone to know it. Even his eyes had sunk in his head, and his face was ashy. He stumbled and seemed about to fall, but shambled forward and managed to cross the line in third place before he collapsed and. was carried ¢ on a stretcher. As he went he raised one hand to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd, but almost as. he raised: it it dropped back listlessly and hung limp over. the edge of the stretcher as he was borne away. ‘I thought a lot about Gailly ‘afterwards and wondered how much of Greece and, how much of Rome there was in his performance and in the attitude of the crowd: to it. Maybe he did not exactly represent the spirit of sport... Perhaps he just represented epirit, which, in any .case, isn’t a bad quality to be remembered for.