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Page 18Smith'sJanuary 14, 1950With Such A Strong Empire Games TeamWE COULD WINOn February 11, when the Empire Games in Auckland end, Australia will have confirmed her position as the Empire’s No. 1 athletic nation.An expert analysis of times and performances over the last year makes it reasonably certain that we will win 24 titles. We have an excellent chance of winning 27; we could win 30:And in half-a-dozen or so events we are so far ahead of the rest of the Empire countries that we are certain to fill all three placings.A DMITTEDLY we have a ^ big advantage. Our swimmers have had the benefit of summer training; our team of around 140 will be the largest ever sent away; our opposition from Great Britain, South Africa and Canada will be pruned by reason of finance and distance of travel.But even the prospect of runaway wtna in many of the eventt won’t deter the sport fans. From now on planes will be running a shuttle service across the Tasman. When the Games begin on Feb-tached to the Sydney C.l. Branch. You'd never think he was a world sporting personality to meet him. He’s shy. ba hful, and quite content to be alone with his loops and whorls.But just at the moment the’ 're talking about including his name on a memorial to all the great amateur athletes since 1896 to repose in Heims Hall, California, U.S.A. Actually they couldn*t pass him over.FINGERPRINT EXPERT Sootland Yard StudyMerv represented AustraUa at the Berlin Olympics in 936 as aruary 4 Auckland will be bulging member Qf th© police rowing crew.Unbeaten i.i any open culling race he has won the Australian single sculls title four times, *nd was No. 1 selection in this country's team for the London Olympics in 1948.In England only a fortnight, he won the Mai ow sculls, added the prized Diamond scu'.ls, then became Olympic scu’ling champion, scoring a unaway win from Risso (Uruguay) and Catasta (Italy).While in England Wood served for a period at Scotland Yard, studying the latest finger printing methods and techniques, some of which have since been introduced into Australia.at the seams.An hotel has been taken over exclusively for visiting sports writers. Their dispatches will be front page news in every corner of the Empire.Every bed, hammock, camp stretcher, deck chair, and billiard table will have an iccupant for the week of the Games within 25 miles of Auckland.Here are some of th~ stars who will bring athletic honors home to Australia in the first Games held since 1938 ....First, naturally, must be Merv Wood, a finger print expert at-Over 400,000 acres under fruitcultivation in Australia provide healthy food for the nation and permit exports valued at fromsix to ten million pounds annually.Fruit growing, processing, canning,preserving and exporting are all fostered by theBank of New South Wales.Consv/f and us« —NEWBANK OF SOUTH WALESFIRST BANK IN AUSTRALIAtIncorporated li» Soutfi Wolts wltti UmlUdMobility-xmrThousands will flock to Lake Karipiro, 92 miles from Auckland, to sec him have a runaway win in the Empire sculls. Wood heads easily the best-equipped rowing squad ever to represent Australia. It should win the double sculls in addition to the single with a bright chance in the fours.Target for the running fans will be John Tre-loar. Edwin Carr, and the Lithgow freak.Marjorie Jackson.They look a class above the talent from the rest of the Empire countries.Treloar. three times winner of the Australian 100 yards championship, is probably Australia’s most criticised runner. He is slow out, of the holes, they say, his action is wrong, be carries his bead too far forward. But for several seasons the studious, rangy Treloar has had his 'critics blushing with embarrassment. He has clocked 9.6 half a dozen times, could reduce that to 9.5 at the Games.At the London Olympics he got to the semi-finals in both the 100 metres and 200 metres, running 10.5 and 21.7 in his heat wins respectively.In Auckland he will run up against nobody of the calibre of Mel Patton. Dillon, or La Beach, Americans who dominated the Olympics. His only serious rival could be McDonald Bailey, who will represent Jamaica as a one-man team.SON OF “SLIP” CARR SmIcs McKenley’s RecordCarr, a son of the once Olympic30 DUESTypical action “shot” of John Treloar, Australian sprint champion and hope for the 100 and 220 yards at the Empire Games in Auckland next month.world record, which has stood since 1944—so she must rate with the Dutch star who n 1948 in London won four Olympic finals.They are just three of the runners. Australian girls got to the finals of the 100 and 200 metres finals at the Olympics and finished second in the 4 x 100 metres relay. At the recent men’s championships three Australian championships were equalled.Several Empire countries had designs on the Auckland hurdles. They’re not so confident now. Into the picture has flashed a young student at the Newcastle Education Department named George Gedge. With only two months’ hurdlingstar “Slip Carr, is Australia's best practice before the State trials earlyprospect over 440 yards. Trained by his father in association with Professor Frank Cotton and his energy conservation technique. Edwin contested 13 440 yards events in Australia *nd New Zealand in the last year and won all of them.In one of them he beat world’s record holder. Herb McKcnley, to win the Australian champioinship. He took the title again a fortnight ago by a decisive three yards win in 47.6, which equalled the national residential record.Carr is not a robust young man. but he possesses tremendous speed and stamina. His 47.6 places him well ahead of his other Empire rivals over the 440 yards. His aim at the Games is to gel down to McKenley’s world time of 46.3.A year ago few people had heard of Marjorie Jackson, of Lithgow.in December he forced champion Geoff Goodacre to set a new Australian record of 23.8 to beat him.Then he went to Adelaide for the Australian championships and smashed the .South Australian record to beat Ken Doubleday (Vic.) and Goodacre very comfortablyGedge got to Adelaide only because he agreed to pay his own fare and expenses. And he will have to find his own expenses to N.Z., too.Australia seems to have a mortgage on the high jump with John Winter as its rep. Winter won the Olympic high jump medal with 6ft. 6in., and has since bettered that mark in Australia. The only Empire jumper to get a placing was A. M. Jakes, of Canada, whose limit—6ft. 3in.—got him into sixth place.Pretty soon after that they did, ....... ... ____though. In February. 1949, she OUR WRESTLERS BESTtwice beat the Dutch flyer. Fanny Tar a Win* ft nr aBlankers-Koen. at the Sydney ffm* *Ur*Sports Ground. It was a shock 1 c*0’* ^ anY of thlt;* Empireto those who had invested several wrestlers beating big Jim Arm-thousands of pounds in Mrs. Blan- strong (heavy) and Dick Garrardkers-Koen’s Australian tour. (welter). Armstrong, a SydneyThey blamed a hole into which policeman and an ex-Rugby Leagueshe had stumbled, but track international, got third place atofficials couldn’t find any trace of a depression, let alone a hole. It was no fluke because Marjorie in their first race equalled the women’s national 110 yards record of 11 secs., which no one had done for 15 years. In their second she clipped 7-10th. of a second off the 100 metres record, on a soft track, too. Because of wind assistance she didn’t get credit for it.But in December Marjorie ran 100 yards in 10.9, thus breaking Edie Robinson’s record set in 1934, which only four other runners had equalled in the interim.The lime was only 1-I0th of a second outside Blankers-Koen'sthe London Olympics, and it took a Hungarian, G. Bobbis. and a Swede, B. Antonsson, to beat him. Jim shocked the hidebound amateur wrestling crowd in Sydney two seasons back when he pitched his opponent over the ropes. It got him a severe reprimand—and a fat offer to turn pro.Garrard, recognised for many years as Australia’s most scientific amateur wrestler, got to second place in the Olympics, and it took a Turk, Y. Dogu, to beat him. We could win other Empire Gaines wrestling titles because not one other Empire nation got anywhere near the top in London.The boxing section is a bit of a problem. We didn't do so good at the last Olympics mainly because of primitive training arrangements, but the other Empire countries did only a little better. In our neck of the woods we could win a \ couple of titles of which the lightweight* with Billy Barber as the rep., looks the brightest hope. He has boxed with a succession of American professional importations, including Rudy Cruz, Cecil Schoonmakcr and Tommy Stenhouse, and more than held his own with them.You can gauge the strength of our cycling team by the fact that Sid Patterson, who last August won the world’s amateur 1000 metres sprint title at Copenhagen, got only No. 2 rating in the Australian team to Auckland. That honor went to Russell Mockridgc. who won five titles at the Australian championships held recently at Bundabcrg (Queensland).Those five titles deprived Patterson of his record of four titles established at the 1948 championships in Sydney when he won the 1000 metres sprint, the 1000 metres time trial, the mile and the five miles.But he righted that at v Copenhagen by becoming the first Australian amateur to win a world title. Actually only one pro. —Bob Spears — had ever achieved such a distinction. Patterson is a giant. With Mockridgc they’re going to have a great time in Auckland.But it is in swimming that Australia is going to reach the rich Empire Games pickings. We have not got champion John Marshall, who is now with Yale University in America, but we still have a team that looks reasonably sure of winning 13 of the 17 titles. That 11 based on a comparison of their times with those of other Empire swimmers during the last 12 months.For instance, you could get long odds against—if they bet on amateur sport—any Englishman. South African. Canadian or New Zealander getting within many yards of Frank O’Neill over sprint distances. In the recent national championships O'Neill won three titles—110yds., 220yds. freestyle and the 330yds. medley.FIRST TO BREAK MINUTE Brilliant SwimIn the 330yds. medley he knocked 6.1 seconds off the previous Australian record. And he became the first Australian swimmer to break a minute for the 110yds. Actually he has swum it even faster because in finishing second to Alex. Jany while abroad last August he covered it in 59.2 secs.Judy Joy Davies won the 110yds. backstroke and the 220 and 440 yds. freestyle titles at the same championships. In the 440yds. race she rcduccd the national rccord by 7.1 secs.—a remarkable performance which, on Empire times, leaves her unchallenged at Auckland.A walkaway in New Zealand, too, should be the 3 x 110yds. medley relay championship in which Miss Davies, Nancy Lyons and Marjorie McQuade are selected. They are the second ranked medley team in the world, failed by only a touch to become world champions after the Londoa Olympics.The collective quality of the swimming representation is outstanding. Just to give you an idea they dropped two record breakers at the recent Australian championships.Taking into consideration the surf teams you'll see that we won't go very far short of those 30 Games titles.Only pity of it is that such magnificent publicity for Australia among Empire nations should have to be secured by fob pocket aid from Governments, begging appeals from spoiling Ixxfies and direct taking-the-hat-round “touches.
Newspaper Details
Sydney Smiths Weekly
Sydney, New South Wales, AU
Sat, Jan 14, 1950
Page 9
Full Page
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WV, USA 29 Nov 2019
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