$8 -. Recent team boxing champ SSR boxers improving, impress foreign experts Boxing is a very popular sport in the Sovi employees, students and school children eng age educational establishments and sports societies.’ city, region, territory and republic levels. r international competitions. and: factories, institutions, ing competitions are arranged Top Soviet boxers take part in majo USSR team performed for the| second time in the European box- ing championships, where the best showings among the Soviet boxers were made by Gennady | Shatkov, fourth-year. student of _ Leningrad University, who won the European middleweight title, and Algirdas Socikas, student of the Kaunas Pedagogical Institute, 3 pact onships By S. SHCHERBAKOV annually on in Moscow ‘are shown in this Soviet photo. et Union. Thousands of workers, office in it in boxing sections set up at plants MOSCOW Mass:scalé box- Last year the who retained his heavyweight crown. : Another three Soviet glovemen —Boris Stepanov, Alexander! Zasukhin, and Warlos Janeryan | —were runners-up in their) weight divisions. Recently Soviet boxers visited England and Scotland, where they had two friendship meets, Landy, Zatopek double threats Track and field events will Olympics, and it is from them that the glamor event of the 1956 Games in Melbourne will come. lowing: 1500 metres, 5000 metres, 385 yards marathon. 7 _ These events are most likely to ‘have a galaxy of outstanding talent from which will. emerge the Olympic champion — the athlete who excels all others in public esteem. The heats of the 1,500 metres will include many runners, not all of whom are destined to reach the final. : These include world record holder Iharos and his fellow Hun- garian Tabori, Neilsen of Den- mark, Hewson of Britain, Jung- wirth of Czechoslovakia, Hermann of Germany, Lewandowski of Poland, Chataway of Britain, Okorokov of the Soviet Union, Hamarsfand of Norway and ‘Landy and Lincoln of Australia. This would probably be the greatest 1,500 metre field of all time. . It includes three runners who have broken the four minutes for the mile, and a host of others who are within two or three seconds of that achievement. At this stage, Australia’s John Landy must be favored to win. Many of these men will also compete in the 5,000 metres. John Landy could easily win another gold medal for Ats- tralia in this one, but at this stage Tharos has the shortest ‘price. : In the 10,000. metres, t the mighty Zatopek must head the list of possibies. always be the backbone of the It is likely to be one of the fol- 10,000 metres, or the 26 mile represented by Ulisperger. This is the race on which Dave Stephens, holder of the world six- mile record, will concentrate. He must be given a good chance of heading the field, which in- cludes Chromik and Kryzskov- jak of Poland, Kovacs, Juhazs, Szabo and Beres of Hungary, Zhukov and Chernyavasky of USSR, Pirie, Norris and Sando of Britain, and Taipale, Saivanen and Posti of Finland. all this year’s Olympic events will be the heart-breaking marathon. ~. Zatopek won this in 1952. He will be opposed this year hy Mimoun of France. Mimoun will probably concentrate on this. event instead of the metres, in which he has twice finished second behind Zatopek (London and Helsinki). Starters will include Karvonen, Pulkinen and Manninan of Fin- land, Kerim of Egypt, Juhazs of Hungary, Lancaster of Britain, Meyer of Germany, Nyberg of Sweden, Pino of Argentina, Walsh of Natal and Ollerenshaw of Ausralia. It is very possible that these four glamor events will be shared by two athletes. Landy could easily win the 1500 and 5000 metres, while the veteran Zatopek will be the man to beat Czechoslovakia will also be in both the 19,000 metres and And possibly the greatest of | - 10,000 | osice of Czechoslovakia, | the marathon. winning 17 bouts and losing only three. The strongest boxers of 15 sports. clubs and societies con- tested the 1955 USSR boxing championships staged in Moscow last November. More than 25 cities sent their representatives to the tournament, which lasted for 10 days. Up to the semi-finals, the championship was on a “sud- den death” basis. Then, however, the four boxers at each weight met under the round-robin sys- tem. Only , one- champion, Boris Stepanov, 1953 and 1954 USSR bantam title-holder, managed to retain his title. es In all other weights the USSR titles went to young boxers. “As guests of honor the USSR Boxing Association had invited three leading - officials of the International Amateur Boxmg (Britain), honorary secretary- treasurer; and M. Grandgagnage (Belgium), vice president. ~ hospitality’ and kindness and friendliness.” impressions of Soviet boxing: “¥ have been pleasantly sur- prised by the successes attained by Soviet boxers since the European championships of 1953 and even 1955. I see that their technique has greatly im- proved, especially in defense. One might say that your ath- letes have acquired the style which, speaking figuratively, resembles the style of fencing.” foee: for a little over 50 years ‘tively recently — in the thirties in estimating their ring perform- ances is the trend which views boxing as a fighting game in which victory is attained owing to technical and tactical super- iority, : Soviet coaches are. working per- Association; °M. E. Gremaux (France), president; R. H. Russel “T was favorably impressed with the organization of the competi- tions,” said Russel. “My visit to Russia has been/a wonderful ex- perience. Both in Moscow and Leningrad I have received great extrordinary M. Gremaux: also shared his Boxing has been cultivated in It became a mass sport compara- Our main trend in the organi- zation and training of boxers and Gert Whyte s SPOR ID Jack Johnson “take a Daiver in his heavyweight title aatch with Jess Willard at Havana? Was he expressing “hatred to the white race” when he gave Tommy,Burns that aw- ful beating in Australia? Why wouldn’t he give Sam Langford a shot at the championship? These questions, and scores of: others often asked about Johnson’s spectacular and con- troversial career in the ring, are answered by sports writer Denzil Batchelor in an exciting new book, Jack Johnson and His Times (available here at the People’s Co-op Bookstore, 337 West Pender, price $3). Batchelor’s answers, and his rating of Johnson among the ring champions, won’t be ac- cepted as gospel by many box- ing experts who hold opposing views. But they are interesting, at least. : Acutely conscious of the in- sults and humiliations that a Negro is faced with, Johnson wrecked terrible vengeance on fighters like Jim Jeffries and Tommy Burns, who were out- gpoken white chauvinists. He regarded them as his enemies, and took delight in inflicting as much punishment as possible. But against other white fight- ers Johnson displayed no such ferocity. He treated Al Kauf- man very gently, and only knocked out. Stanley Ketchell after the middleweight champion a sneak punch at Jack’s jaw. Johnson hit the deck, bounced up and caught Stan with a right uppercut as he came rushing in for the kill. That was all. After Ketchell had. been dragged to his corner Johnson’s seconds discovered three of the Pole’s front teeth embedded in Jack’s right mitt. — ; Did Johnson “take a dive” against Willard? Or did he just run out of steam after leading tried a double-cross and threw |’ TLIGHT the second round and almost tore his head off. Dempsey sur- vived the punch and went on to win, but said later that he had never been hit so hard in his life. Did Johnson duck a title fight with Sam Langford ? He certainly did. And not only Langford got the run- around. Johnson also steered clear of Joe Jeannette and Sam McVey, two other leading Negro heavyweights. : The reason was simple. All — were good men, probably not as gcod as Johnson in his prime but capable of taking an upset TOMMY BURNS decision should the’ champ be slightly out of condition or have. an off night. _ Johnson the champ lived high “champagne, parties and girls —-and was never in first-rate fighting condition after the Jeffries’ fight in 1910. He could whip Frank Moran while fat and soft, but he had no intention of laying his title on the line Jess connected with his best punch, a right uppercut, in the 26th round ? Batchelor agrees with most experts that Johnson was de- feated because he had reached the end of the trail, and dis- counts Jack’s confession that he “threw” the fight. Willard’s right uppercut was good enough to knock out any , SAM LANGFORD. man in the world. He had killed Bull Young with it, and in 1919, after having been knocked down seven, times in the first round by Jack Dempsey, he caught sistently to raise the- technical and tactical skill of their boxers. for more than 20 rounds, and go | ‘| all.” against Langford, McVey or . Jeannette. \ down for the count when Big’ | Johnson was especially sen- sitive about Langford, because the Boston challenger was really only an overgrown middle- weight, although he possessed one of the most devastating punches in the ring. Where does Johnson stand among the champions? As a boxer, says Batchelor,” Jack stands at the top. defensive skill has never bee? — equalled, and he also had 2 knockout wallop in either hand. Yet Johnson defended his title but seldom, and refused t? meet his three main challeng- ers, Langford, McVey and Jean- nette, even though he had beateD all three before he became champion. Against Tommy Burns, a lit- tle mdn, and Jim Jeffries, 2 bit man, Johnson looked like perfect fighting machine. the basis of these ‘performances: plus his pre-championship pat- tles, he has been called by Nat Fleischer, “the greatest of the™ Batchelor’s story tells the highlights of Johnson’s career both in and out of the ring, a a number of fine photographS add to the interest of the story: Despite some inaccuracies 4? several important omissiomS: Jack Johnson and His Times © a valuable addition to @DY — Dempsey with the uppercut in MAY 4, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE \ sportsman’s library. 10