Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-04-12
Little britisher
10 Run
Ragged
Records Since Prove
Wins Over LoveIock
Were Bono Eide
BY GAYLE TALBOT,
Associated Press Sports Writer

NEW YORK, April 12.-It will
be a great surprise to me If Sydney
Wooderson, the scatter-footed little
Englishman, does not run the legs
off Glenn Cunningham, our top
miller, in their long waited race at
Princeton on June IT,
It has been my unimportant opin-
ion for about four years that the
frail-looking Londoner was the
greatest miller in the world, capa-
BILE of beating either Cunningham
or Jack Lovelock. the great New
Zealander. any time he met them
in a special race.
I still think he would have won
the 1900 meters in the 1896 olympics
at Berlin had it not been for an
injured ankle, even though Love-
lock raced to record in that
event. A fierce light burns behind
the spectacles of the little clerk.
You see, Wooderson came up the
hard way, and I happened to be
there to watch it happen. Lovelock
already was famous when Wood
erson, running for an obscure club
team around London, first chal-
lenged the great Oxford captain.
Figure Victory An Accident.
The crowd at White City that
day scarcely could credit its eyes
when Wooderson, the unknown,
came up in the stretch to pass
Lovelock. Why, Wooderson wasn't
even public school boy"
So they passed that one off as
an accident. The mishap soon
might have been forgotten, except
that the next time they met on
the same track Wooderson lit out
and did it again. 1 saw it, and
later saw Lovelock, and he was as
puzzled as the next one.
II was running the best I knew
how" he said in his precise &C
cent. TT looks as though I simply
can't beat him. doesn't it?"
Indeed it did, and Lovelock nor
any other runner since has beaten
Wooderson when he had the full
use of his thin legs. The records
he has set since offer substantial
proof that those victories over Love-
lock strictly were on the level, little
credit as he received for them even
in England.
His is country slow to take up an
athlete unless he wins his blue"
either at oxford or Cambridge. Up
to year and half ago. to my
knowledge, the London sports pages
still did not spell Wooderson's name
correctly. In fact, most of them had
vague impression that his first
name was Stanley. Possibly they
still do.
Wooderson Is Shy.
Wooderson was so shy and quiet
he did little to dissipate the faint at
mosphere of mystery about himself.
He emerged to run race for his
Blackheath barriers or to run against
time, and then retire to his "clark's"
stool in the financial section of Lon
don.
In the days preceding the Berlin
Olympics frequently saw the Lon
don reporters clustered about Love-
lock after he had finished training
run, but never saw them approach
| Wooderson. Later it came as a sur
prise to most of them to learn that
| Wooderson had run in the $500
meters with a bad ankle
| I guess maybe Wooderson remem-
bers all this. the way he has def1ed
the British amateur track body and
insisted upon coming over to meet
Cunningham in the Princeton invi-
tation mile. They are several years
late in making fuss over him.
Cunningham, who is quite fin
Usher himself, is likely to be surprised
when Wooderson turns on the heat
about 100 yards from home. Cum
bingham will be we'll advised to set
out and run the fastest race he can
from the start, and not hold back
under the impression he can outfoot
the Englishman close to home.