The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-17
PROTEST IS MADE UPON
 SCORING BY BRITISH
System of Scoring Puts the Americans In Bad for the Olympic Contests, They Would Excel By
 American System.

ca s day in the Olympic sports at the Stadium. both big events which reached the finals. throwing the discus free style. and putting the shot being car ried off by Martin J. Sheridan of the Irish American Athletic club, and Ralph Rose of the Olympic club of San Francisco respectively.
 The United Kingdom captured the third final the 4OO-meter swimming event. in which H. Taylor added to the score of his country by beating Beaure- paire. the Australian crack, and Scheff of Austria.
 The final also was reached in the 1O00- meters cycle race but this proved such a fasco through the attempts of four of the participants, Schilles of France and Jones and Kingsbury and Johnson of England to force each other to take the pace that the judges de- clared the event off, 1t not being fin ished within the time limit. Italy got her first gold medal today in the team gymnastic competition. receiving the greatest number of points against great array of competitors.
 No official announcement is obtain able as to how the British Olympic association is going to decide the Olympic championship, but the system adopted by the London sporting papers in arrival at the respective positions of the various countries has been gen erally accepted.
 This system awards one point for each win, ignoring seconds and thirds and includes all sports carried out under the auspices of the association whether within the Stadium or out side of it. Following this method of counting points, the countries would be placed in this order:
 English Scoring.
 United Kingdom, 20; United States 8; Swenden, 8; Norway, ?, and Canada. Belgium and Italy. 1 each.
 If the proposed method of counting points is followed by the British Olympic association, England will win the trophy, for there are few countries taking part in the sports outside the Stadium. The American athletic team. which is devoting it's attention to the events within the Starium, however .s not accepting the interpretation. James E. Sullivan, president of the Amateur Athletic union and United States com missioner to the Olympic games, said to the Associated Press tonight:
 We came here as we went to Paris and Athens, with field team, and are making a fight in the field events. | oil rfS We asked that the championship trophy be put up for the field sports but this request was not acceded to. So we will simply take the score in the fed events, counting first, five points; second, three points, and third one point, and figure out the American score on this basis"
 American Scoring.
 Under the American system the score as it stands tonight is as follows:
 America-Throwing the hammer 8, team race B. discus g, putting the shot S. 1500- meter race 5-total 3l.
 United Kingdom-Team race B. putting the shot 3, 15OO-metre race 4, 3500-metre walg S-total 20.
 Sweden 5, Greece 3, Canada l. Australia 1, Norway 1.
 Commissioner Sullivan has received. a reply to the letter which he sent to Lord Desborough, chairman of the Olympic (British) association protesting against certain of the rules governing the con- 1 tests and referring to other matters in ) connection with the games In his reply, Lord Desborough opens with an apology to the Americans for the failure to use a single American flag in the decoration of the stadium on the opening day, the omission to do so, he says, has since been remeded He then takes up the complaint of the Americans regarding the conduct of the sports, the question of the pole vault was referred to the Amateur Athletic association. which decided not to allow the Americans to dig a hole for the pole, but acceded to the request to have pits filled with sand for landing on
 With regard to the question of heat drawings, Lord Desborough pointed out in his letter that the drawings had al- ready been made in the various heats and could not be altered, although this had not been asked for.
 After reading Lord Desborough's letter, Commissioner Sullivan replied that If the drawings were already made the Amer jeans would like to see them before the day on which the events were to be con- tsted, a privilege which heretofore had not been accorded them.
 Extra Events.
 In addition to the discus throwing, the weight putting, the 400-metre swim and the 1000-metre cycle race, a number of preliminaries in other events were pulled off today. These included the second heat of the 100-kilometre cycle race. two heats of the 10-mile walk, two heats in the sec ond round of the 2O0-metre breast stl oke swim the fifth heat of the fancy diving, in which H. C. Grote of the Missouri Athletic club was second, and seven heats of the 100-metre back stroke swimming in which A. M Goesslng of the Missouri Athletic club the only American entered. , vas beaten in the sixth heat It was miserably wet and cold all day. the rain falling heavily from early morn- ing until after the last event had been ! decided The competitors and officials who had to be in the field were dripping with water all day long, and the whole scene was about as cheerless as could be ' imagined The stands and course were deserted and later in the afternoon tle running track resembled a canal For tunately there were no running races on the programme All the gymnastic dis plays. which were the feature of previous M days. had to be put off, and even the J band did not make its appearance to help \dispel the gloom.