THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH,
THE WEATHER'S ALWAYS RIGHT IN THE WEST INDIES
BY ESTHER CHAPMAN
What has made the West Indians a nation able to challenge the rest of the world in many sports and to achieve supremacy?
The answer lies in the West Indian climate and in the adaptability of the West Indians themselves.
Almost every day the weather is right for outdoor sports; That is why a Wint and a McKenley create running records in the Olympic Games, why a Mott Trille leads the tennis team of Britain's world-famous Univer- sity, Oxford.
That is why the standard of | in many parts of the West In- cricket improves year by year, and why they have establish- ed their superiority over Eng- land in her national game.
Every West Indian village has its cricket green-probably a patch of rough grass among felds of sugar cane, or a roughly-partitioned section of a cattle property. Often it is not even level.
LIKE MINERS
dies to compress the week's work into the days between Monday and Thursday, and tó relax for the rest of the week. Relaxation may include excr- |cise on the sports fleld.
There is little professional coaching in sport. Boys have to learn the hard way by per- | senal effort and competition. McKenley had to wait until he joined an American University before he had his first real
This roughness of pitch ap- plies to both cricket and fool-professional training. ball. There is a parallel with the mining villages of the North-East of England, where minens and thei: sono, before the days of wolfare clubs at any rate, played football on what wore Titte move 401 stony "dumps."
But they learned to shoot first time regardless of the dis- concerting tricks the ball play- ed on the irregular surface and similarly West Indians learn carly to master the awkward- ly bouncing ball at soccer, or at cricket to "hook" the “buin- per" for a four.
Cricket is often learned öy playing a hurtling coconut with a slim broom handle. In this -way-tiny-tots of six and seven learn to overcome adversity, so that later on they can wield a 1st gainst a cricket ball with considerable dexterity.
-The village green has play- ed a great part in West Indian sport. It is the centre of the athletic life of the community. And this is the important fat- tor-it is played on every day, and not just on Saturday afternoons.
LONG WEER ENDS In the towns most offices close at four o'clock, and there are two or three hours of day- light left for outdoor sport It has become cool by his
The general standard in sport is so high that the public is sometimes slow to recognuse outstanding ability. Rhoden, who ran in the Olympic Games, and did well, went to. Britain almost by default. His talent was not recognised un- til he had proved it at Wem- bley.
The standard of tennis is maintained and improved by he vislls of star performers from the USA.
NATURAL GRACE Jamaicans have. a natural grace and bodily vigour, in-. herited from generations ancestors who
of
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1950.
HE'S AFTER BIG STEAKS
رائح
Laurent Dhuthill came very near to beating Jake LaMotta for the middle- weight crown. He didn't win but that did not spoil his appetite. Here he smiles
hungrily as his wife, Andree, cuts his breakfast steak.
carried their THE GAMBOLS
burdenis on their heads. It is common for a woman to walk 14 miles to market carrying a huge basket of provisions.
Tie men walk long distan ces as a matler of course. Their life is lived in the open air, and this helps to develop fine physiques. The proportion of the people who actively en- gage in sport is high.
Enthusiasm reaches its greatest heights on the cricket d, and the success of last summer's English tour has arcused enough enthusiasm to maintain cricketing prowess for a generation at least.
And then there are the Calypso pocis,
who compose victories.
time. The fields are near at songs to celebrate hand; there are no long jour-They play their part as effec- neys to be taken to distant tively as the atmosphere crea- suburbs.
tors" who conduct community singing at stadiums in other parts of the world.
Everything is in favour of the sportsman. It is the custom
HONEST JOE
Barry Apply
RACES
WELL, SURELY YOU DIDN'T EXPECT! ¡ME TO COME AWAY WITHOUT
SOME SORT OF SECURITY) FOR THE WINNINGS HE OWES ME
They All Agree That Boxing Is A Dangerous Sport
The Remarkable
Magnetism Of Tommy Farr
By ARCHIE QUICK
The magnetism of Tommy Farr is remarkable. Here he is, a Welsh miner retired from the boxing ring these ten years after having relinquished his British heavy- | weight title and lost four fights in a row in the United States after being defeated on points by Joe Louis. Yet wherever he goes Farr attracts the crowds.
We all know of the thousands he took with him to Pontypridd when he beat the giant Dutchman Jan Klein, a not very significant Continental. He is an attraction of the first order where he trains in Brighton. The Granby Hall, Leicester, has been sold out these past four weeks even although Farr's opponent has varied between Nill- son of Norway, Rogier of France, Eugene of Belgium before it was settled to be Piet Wilde of Belgium, whom he has now beaten on a knockout.
BY CORNELIUS RYAN Almost all athletic authorities in the USA agree that boxing is a dangerous sport, but there the agreement ends. The authorities differ widely in group of business men their ideas of what is to be done about it.
Abe. Greene, commissioner of the National Boxing Association, wants to stabilise safety rules governing boxers in each state so that the NBA can "draw a lime on ring activities of boxers and thus curb the permanent impairment which has come to be known as 'punch-drunkenness."
BRAIN DAMAGE
:
the point where a full
team was not available.
to me
Farr has arranged further or hurt me a lot, but 1. would fights in Carmarthen, Manches- | never be able to match him on ter and Leicester, all of which points over the distance," the public wal flock to see end now he has announced
The big thing about Farr is that he has contracted with a that he is reviving the boxing. to fight fever where Britain needs it Indoors in the historic town of most in the Valleys of the Caernarvon later on, and is Rhondda, Taff and Neath, in holding 15.000 to make it the Swansea, as certain to fill a hall capable of Cardiff, Pontypridd, Newport,
far west biggest indoor boxing show evermarthen and Llanelly, and even as Car-
staged in Wales.
INCREDIBLE
that
to North Wales.
Others are getting the urge to do likewise and follow the Tonypandy man's example with the result that Wales has real chance of producing a Farr has his eye on one from food young heavyweight fada, Barry,
The American Modical As- The doctor's tests found in- idle to soclation, in its magazine, call-juries in many pros who had ed boxing "the greatest killer seemed healthy. Of the fighters In sports," said that 50 percent who had been knocked out, 29.6 sin made a two-year study and when you remember
But the University, of Wiscón- . All of which is incredible, of all active lighters are purich-percent had serious bain in-ld that intercollegiate boxing Tommy is 36 years of age and drunk and said that use of doc juries.
Hurts no tors at ringside merely furnishes
one either physically has been away from the boxing "phony, respectability."
To mentally. Wisconsin added scene for a decade. Not so in- Dr Sjaardema invented a that rollege bouts are stopped credible perhaps when you re- machine to detect injuries and quickly when u man is dazed, call our present crop of heavy- that for a man of his grd and Personally though, I think enable the boxer to quit before and knockouts or even knock, weights, I think Farr's he is hurt seriously. The AMA downs are rare.
ex- taking into consideration his Dr Hendrickus Sjaardema, suggested that boxing bf Gut
perience could beat the lot-long lay-off. Faris taking too brain specialist at Queen of lawed entirely Greene suggests Public furore of the question out to regain the national cham-Ioticed that he had lost an ahd, take no mistake, he is all much out of himself, in training. Angels Hospital in Los Angeles, more, Isafety measures such as of boxing safety occurs only plonship. He still has ho sort unnecessary, stone in weight, made # two-year study of thicker-ring-padding more fre--when there has been a widely-of a knockout munch ber he noticed that his legs have shed boxers working with the Call- qucht examination of boxers, publicised death, such as that of does possess the necessary skill, too much flesh, that his chest s fornia Athletic Commission, and Land better equipment.
Sam Baroudi, killed by Ezzard found that professional fighters Jolin Carroll University can-Charles or Jimmy Doyle, killed
a little sunker and he is facial p had many more examples ocelled its boxing team when by. Ray Robinson. There has cruiserweight,
Don Mogard, the Canadian ly drawn. Maybe I am wrong. brain damage than did na-ental objections caused the been no
who is Farr's because he such death in recent solę spanning partner, sa'd to gym routine without blinking an went through his personnel of the squad to dwin-months.-United Press,
me: "He could not knock me out eyelid, strenuous though it was
amateurs.
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