1960-08-09 — Page 9

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SPORTSMEN IN THE NEWS

Avery Brundage-he keeps vigil over the pure Olympic flame

By SIMON KAVANAUGH

Self-made millionaires come tough in Chicago.

And

this millionaire, at 72, remains powerfully- shouldered, fit-looking, and aggressively uncom promising.

It is no more than Chicago expects. Chicago, like the rest of America, can admire a man whose building construction firm has added a sizeable chunk to the city's skyline; who began from scratch and got around to putting up a 16-acre, four-million-dollar factory for the Ford Motor Company.

. But when Mr Avery Brundage steps from his executive suite into the arena of international sport he feels the bite of a colder, rawer air.

When Brundage the con- struction millionaire moves smoothly into his pher role of Brundage the President of the International Olymple not admira- Committee it is tion that he hears about him. It is anger,

Can take it all

If a man is known to stand rocklike for his principles, it can make for good relations and personal popularity. But it can work out differently. Avery har proved that, once and for all.

"Slavery Avery," they have called him. "Umbrage Brun dige." "The only man who never takes off his stuffed shirt." "The meanest man in sport," "Dictator." "Fusspot."

This was hardly more than restating the rules, But, in a torrent, hundred tongued Avery was accused of being How restrictive. impossibly could anyone know what any athlete would want to do in ten, twenty years' time?

The critics got no change, of course. "An amateur who - | tends to turn professional is not really an amateur at all," pre nounced Brundage, pokerfaced and impassive.

It was a harsh doctrine, But who could deny the President his way little smile afterwards. when the world saw top athletes vaulting neady from the Olympic Stadium into the Colosseum of Cash?

If Avery tras a dictator (some began to wonder) ... well, did dictators always have to be wrong?

All-round champion It all seems s pretty poor_re Predictably, sporting passion, turn for a lifetime's zealous loomed early in the big man's guardianship of the pure flame ofte. Born in Detroit, he moved amateurism in sport, But Avery as a youngster to Chicago; and Brundage, ex-discus thrower and at the University of Minois he industrial empire-builder, can

was already the best all-round take it all.

trock and held athlete.

i.

THE CHINA MAIL TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1980.

AVERY BRUNDAGE .

ilm; as it prospered, he launched into hotel ownership in Chicago and California.

his 1 And, two years after

marriage in 1927, the world was already hearing the first remarkable pronouncements of the new President of the US.

Olympic Amociation.

Their dedicated intensity rose as Brundage became first Presi- dent of the Comite de Sportivo

a Vice Pan-Americano, and President of the International Amateur Athletic Federation.

Personal war

Mr Brundage's personal war against professionalism has been In 1948 waged on many fronts,

he nominated his own U.S. ice- hockey team to rival that of the Amateur Hockey Association at the St Moritz Winter Olympics.

In the end both teams were ejected, and the ice hockey was removed from the programune.

For the sake of those who had bought tickets, the matches were allowed to be played but by the other team, not his own.

Later the same year. Brun- the heart dage found himself

i

sin fem their houses I order".

the Games unless

ENGLISH FOOTBALL SEASON WILL OPEN THIS YEAR

WITH MANY PROBLEMS

By ARCHIE QUICK

Every football club manager I have spoken to so far has had divided

opinions about the coming sërsün. They feel that Television has come into their lives to stay and they must, perforce, live with it. They feel that the proposed "live" broadcasts on Friday and Saturday nights-League matches by commercial tele- vision and Cupties by the BBC-will boost the game.

Page

Record gate for Rome Olympics

Rome, Aug. 8 The advance ticket sales for the Summer Olymples have alraedy brought in more cash than the total gate at any previous Olympic session, ganisers said today. This means a record gate at the Rome Games, opending on Aug. no other

-30

Aus 25, even if t extremely unlikely.

Omdals of the Italian Olymple Committee સામ US$3,200,000 had gone into the cash from advance ticket

They are uncertain about the post, in

a small way to the based on early season form. This sales so far. cu come of the rebellious Foot. [chubs and the players will could be a catastrophe. ball League Cup competition, benefit by it with extra 'ap And they are manjmous, over-pearance" wages and beruses, all, that most of the clubs will but it will not be the same

and more thing. have to rely more upon the subsidies they get from their respective Suppor ters' Clubs with their sweep- stakes, whist driven, refer ground collections and dances

The officials jald this And so the eternal controversy tops the record total gate of of which

comes first- the 22,823,000 at Helsinki, in 1952. domestic League and the Satur-The total gate at Melbourne *I would not give you two day afternoon spectator or the four years ago was $2,531,000,- pennies to walchi a match on Association with its wide-screen the officials added.

vista. Presonally, I can never More then three

million The screen Saturdays, of see the question being answered, tickets have been put on sale for Fridays come to that, because The League is determined that the various Olympic events. the atmosphere is not there the club is of paramount impor Officials of the Italian Olymple tance. and the Association Committee mid a total gate of focuses Its gaze on impossible more than six million dollars is World Cup triumphs and possible if all tickels were sold. horizons beyond.

---AP.

It is synthetic entertainment, were "put into counteract a fall in “gates.”

He bas proposed that each nation should fimit its track and deld entries to one com- petitor for each event which some thought jarred oddly with his own condemnation of nationalism.

And he has cited Dr Roger Bannister, the first four-minute miler, as "the perfect example of

a true amateur."

Beyond the stadium and the executive suite, Avery Brundage and also studies oriental art philosphy; collects jade. Chinese lacquor, swords and bronzes.

Now, as the Rome Olympies loom, the circular teller have zone out again. Letters bear- ing the signature of Avery Brundage, asking Rational Olymple Comunifices to ensure that the Games are confined to those "who are eligible cording to the rules,”

The cost

36-

A famous club manager, who must of necessity remain name-

less, told me

A showdown?

thing: "But that is the way

going today. The old die- hards of football are disappear-

"League aten- danes have nosedived alarmare

gly in the past few soars

and the new and they will drop another te

generation per cent this time because of coes not want to know. I don't The blame the League and the FIA the television competition. money will come back. 1 sup- for trying to grab as much as they can, and I suppose the clubs should be grateful that some of it plus the League's "Pools' fortume - is going to be ploughed back to them."

CHESS

by LEDHARI BAKEN

201

Through long career in American athletics he has taken 11; then internationally, in the highly-coveted post that is per haps sport's highest accolade 1918 he was America's all-round was delving into the amateur could find plenty to keep him Germany's champion player Never once has he weakened in

In the 1912 Stockholm Olym- ples, Brundage finished fifth in the Pentathlon and 15th in the Decathlon. In 1914, 1916 and

he

It costs Avery $20,000 a year of his own money to keep his of another row about payments globetrotting vigil over the pure, to competitors for wages lost fame. There are those who say The bis rigid concept of amateurism while they took part in

He opposed this, is a myth: that it has failed hopelessly to move with the Games. naturally.

Three years ago Brundage times; and that in any case his desire to promote interna-champion. His big enthusiasm status of British horsewoman busy in his own sporting yard.

can admire (albeit, grudgingly) through was walking ("the closest a man Pat Smythe, after a watch firm But there are also those who brotherhood. tional amateur sport, or in his loathing can come to the pangs of child- had paid the British Horse Asso-

birth").

ciation for use of her name and in any man so long and selfless

a vigil over any kind of flame. of of anything that smacked

From University he became an picture.

He has threatened amateur

And even his disgruntled foes, professionalism.

engineer: then a buflding construction superintendent. He soccer, cycling, basketball and through their umbrage, must saved hard to found his own water polo bodies with exclu- concede Mr Brundage that.

And when Avery says amateur, he means just that.

"An amatent," he Den nounced once lo gei It straight for ever, is just what the a lover, dictionary implies: from the Latin word 'amator".

amateur Ад

sporisman engages in sport for the love of the game, and only love. Hi's just as simple is that.” It has taken him into some lonely, bitter battles, that creed,

First storm

After the war, no-one who knew about Avery Brundage would have given much for his chances of the Big Job. Twice already he had drawn storms of abuse about his head from his own countrymen for his stern disciplining of Olympic con- testants: in each case, a pretty girl

The first time, in 1936, was when U.S. swimmer Eleanor beauty Holm Jarrett, whose matched that of many a film star of her day, sipped champagne at parties aboard the ship taking her to the Berlin Olympics.

Avery heard of it and dis- missed her from the team. His intransigent stand for his beliefs earned him the concerted wrath of US sports writers. But Eleanor never dipped a pretty toe in that Olymple pool.

The second storm, in 1948, centrea about "sugar-Dum fairy" Barbara Ann Scott, Canada's ice-queen End Olymple figure-skating cham- Dion, and a canary-yellow car Presented to her by devoted admirers,

Again, Avery heard of it. If Barbara accepted the gift, she was told firmly, the American Athletic Union (President:

•Brundage) would declare her a 'professional. In a flood of teenage lears, and amid inter- national argument that reached Canadian -Parliament, Barbara gave back the car.

Accused

*the

1952

! Nevertheless, in

Brundage's years of hard work as head of the US Olympic Committee won him the accolade. And at once it ble- came impressively clear, through a succession of co- troversial circulars, that here was an Iternational President who could never remain a Agurehead,

He pitched right in with brisk condemnation of excessive nationalem in the Games. He 'suggested eliminating women's events. He advocated the banning of publication of an unofficial table, showing points won by different nations.

Then, four years ago, Avery Brundage invoked the massed Indignation of the world's press by an (unsuccessful) bid before the Melbourne Olympics tớ have all compeing athletes

with sting that n

Would never fessionals.

become

· pro-

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MY GOOD FRIEND VINCENT WILL OBLIGE, I AM SURE

By Mik

By Ernie Buckmiller

That was a First Division club manager, talking, and, be added: "There must be a showdown sooner or later regarding which comes first, club or country. At the moment the clubs are win- ding, and they are in such a

THESE FOUR BRITISH

KIDS CAN SPLASH

TO OLYMPIC GLORY

Says JUDY GRINHAM

strong position that I feel mid- Every morning at eight o'clock, from Aberdeen to

weck home Internationals against

Scotland,

Northern

Ireland and Wales are inevitable"

פרים

Brighton, Britain's Olympic swimmers will be cramming in those last precious miles before they fly to Rome sweating to pull out a little more sprint speed in an effort to spurt towards an Olympic medal.

But will their journey to the greatest sporta tournament in the wond be really worth it? WID Britain's Olympl swim team return triumphant from the Rome arena?

Manager 4 went "Sarnetimes I feel we should withdraw from Internationale will overseas countries matil WC have reached

new stability and standard ---- and that looks a long way off yet -but the Football Asociation seem determined to carry on with this International pro gramme, and I, for one, dread what is likely to happen at Wembley on October 28' when we face Spain. "They will have a more or less settled team: we shall still Who will rock the world? be juggling with eleven Brian Phelps, that inimitable

an

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I say Britain can hope for three gold medals Iming and diving.

in swim-

American Mike Troy will leave Jan trailing.

Even the Aberdeen lad's hopes of a place will be hotly contest- ed by the new 100 metres world- record holder, American Lance Larson, and the Australian, Neville Hayas..

In

Not at best

the freestyle In - could cockney highboard diver? snatch a diver behind Jon Kon-

who has rads (Australia) Natalie Steward,

over 400 Dough: Rhodesian and British metres, officia dom to race for us on backstroke and freestyle? Aber- deen flier Fan Black? Or Anita Longbrough?

!

Yet although Black looks times hopelessly trounced on this year, I firmly believe we have not seen

his him at

Natalie Steward, the Rhode- church, Essex, could cost easily sian girl now living in Horn- to a gold on backstroke, it only she races hard instead of just swimming to win.

sparkling best, Has ability

claimed

In 1958, Phelps, then only 14, defeated the champions Europe to snatch the European high-diving title. Now at 18, he has to face, the world's best.

Even when Natalle Brian has the ability to crack the American and Mexican my world 110 yards backstroke monopoly on the highboard, but record this month, she could have gone faster. She was only swimming to beat the opposition. Natalie MUST learn this vital Lesson before Rome,

in Britain's last hope for an Black, treestyle and butterfly dividual medal is Anita Lons- star, is being sadly left behind brough, the Huddersfield breast- in both strokes by the Austra-stroker.

he

must have sympathetic judges behind him if he is to somersault to a gold medal 1rom the 33ft, board.

Kans, Americana, and Japonest. Ex-world record holder Anita Butterflying Back lles over will have to swim to her best to five seconds behind on the 200 climb on to the Rome rostrum. It But Anita in tip-top fonn can metres Olympic distance,

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