There seems to be no doubt that this year's Olympic
Games did achieve something definite. At any rate they inspired enlightened comments in papers of different countries. Two that reached me come from very well-known journals— Die Welt in Germany and the Corriere della Sera in Italy. Both say what most English sportsmen would hold is precisely the right thing. Die Welt's article, headed significantly "Gold Medals Count Little," gives the palm among all the athletes to the Oxonian Chataway. After expressing regret that in the minds of some competitors nationalism was stronger than sportsmanship, the writer add:, : " I am quite sure that one nation is animated by no such sentiments—the English." He saw the Russians as mere tools, required to pay back in' gold medals the capital invested in them. He saw the Germans stagger round the arena after a defeat as if the skies were falling, he saw Herbert Klein standing apathetically on the edge of the swimming-pool as if the world had crashed round him; he saw too " the Englishman Chataway, that mag- nificent 5,000-metre 'runner, who might even have beaten Zatopek if he had not stumbled at the last straight. I saw Chataway cross the line fifth, laughing, as unconcerned as if nothing had happened. No Englishman talked much about this lost chance, no English paper shed any tears. Today, as events pass into experience and we draw our conclusions from them, Chataway remains for me the classic example of the Olympic spirit." That is a notable tribute.
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