Marilyn on world

record swim

‘Time somebody did
something for Canada’

Canadians have taken to their hearts a petite blonde schoolgirl who battled darkness,

choppy waters, clinging eels and C
Marilyn Bell, five-foot-one
Pounds wringing wet, set a new wor
lake at a point 32 miles wide as the crow flies.
Succeeded in reaching the Toronto water

Ontario,

both victors over the English Channel, were forced to give up.

A quarter of a million people
linea the shore in a roaring wel-
_fome to the tiny champion waose
fighting heart carried her to vic-
tory in the race that she entered
because “I just thought it was time
' Somebody did something for Can-
ada.” Her fellow countrymen
cheered and wept as her girl
ttiend Joan Cook leaped fully
Clothed into the chilly lake to pull
Marilyn out, exhausted but still
Same,

Two receptions that followed
drew bigger crowds than visiting
Toyalty as_100,000 greeted her at
the Canadian National Exhibition
Sounds and 150,000 jammed To-
Tonto city hall square for a civic
Teception .

All across the country Canadians
felt a thrill of pride at the ex-
Ploits of this modest freckled 16-

year-old with the boyish bob and
- the infectious grin who secmed to
typify the best in Canadian youth.

The people of Canada appeared
€termined to atone for the dog-
Sed opposition of the Tory heads
Of the so-called “Canadian Nation-
al Exhibition” who fought stub-
bornly to try and prevent Marilyn
and Winnie Roach Leuzler, the
Only Canadian ever to best the
English Channel, from entering
the lake swim against U.S. star
Florence Chadwick.

The CNE signed a contract with
Miss Chadwick that premised her
$10,000 if she made the crossing
and gave her $2,500 in advance.
Condition of the agreement was
at no other swimmers be allowed
® compete. When Marilyn made
hown her intention to try it, pat-
Notic firms and individuals made
Wp an unofficial “Marilyn Pell
Fund” to back her.

After her success, the CNE
directors attempted to climb on the
ndwagon by paying her the $10,-
and excusing themselves on
‘ the grounds of the sacredness of
€ir contract with Chadwick. But
Most Canadians supported Mari-
Yn’s coach Gus Ryder who attack-
€d them for entering into sueli a
Setup,

salt shows,” said Ryder, “that
Siven the opportunity, Canadian
athletes are second to none.” »

‘ * * *

Gruelling nature of the swim}.

Can be seen from a look at the
Course which stretches across tae
Upper end of Lake @ntario from
he mouth of the Niagara river to
he bay on which Toronto is locat-

Swim was made With the. water
4 chilly 63 degrees and in face of

igh waves and a strong west
Wind. Weather and current con-
ditions make it probable that Mari-
Yn swam as much as 45 miles in
Making the 32-mile crossing.

She entered the lake at Youngs-
town, New York shortly before
Midnight after confessing to a
child-like fear of the dark. Swim-
Ming all night with the beam of
Powerful searchlights on ker, she
Was well out into the lake by dawn.

As the water lost its night chil’,
She seemed to get her second wind
and by midday was within eight
Miles of the Toronto shoreline.

A strong westerly current along

NE officiaidom to become the first person to conquer Lake
New Toronto high school student who weighs in at 119
Id record for distance swimming in her epic crossing of the
In a 21-hour struggle with the elements, she
front where two more mature and experienced swimmers,’

Among the flood of congratu-
lations that poured into Marilyn
"Bell was a telegram from Tim
Buck, national leader of the
-Labor-Progressive .party. Said
Buck: “The Labor-Progressive
party from coast to coast greets
your marvellous success and
your courageous battle in the
cause of Canadian sport. Warm-
est congratulations. You have
stirred the national pride of all
Canadians.”

Stirred national pride
Tim Buck wires Marilyn

Buck also sent a message to
Mrs. Winnie Roach Leuzler, the
other Canadian swimmer who

crosssed Lake Ontario to with-
in six miles of the Canadian

shore before being pulled from
the water completely exhausted.
The wire read: “Warmest con-
gratulations on. your gallant
swim and for your battle to up-
hold Canadian sport and our na-
tional dignity.”

_ MARILYN BELL

eis chore pulled her off her course
and she was forced to smash into
six-foot waves to get back ‘to her
planned route. :

During the whole time her coach
Gus Ryder followed her in a small
poat, feeding her at intervals and
holding up encouraging signs for
her on a chalked blackboard.

- Her progress slowed to an agon-
izing crawl as evening fell and at
times it seemed as if the mite in
the white bathing cap with the
good luck four-leaf clover tucked
into it, would never make it.

But she rested and the sheer
guts and great determination of a
real champion re-asserted itself.
Wearily she stroked on, the 50-a-

minute crawl beat slowing to a,

leaden pace.

Finally, it was a 1000 yards —
500 — 200 —-and then she touch-
ed the breakwater at Sunnyside

and willing hands were pulling
her into the boat.

As she neared the Ontario side
of the lake, business in the great
Canadian metropolis slowed to a
halt. “How far is she now?’ was
the question on everyone’s lips. As
night fell every available inch of
space along the waterfront of the
Exhibition and Sunnyside beach

were filled. And the huge crowd
roared out its welcome as Marilyn

hit the beach.

Almost forgotten in the gen-
eral hullaballoo was Mrs. Win-
nie Roach Leuzler, who swam to\
within six miles of the Eastern
entrance to Toronto harbor be-
fore having to give Up in com-
plete exhaustion.

=

Pulled from the water after only
13 miles, Florence Chadwick
suffered her second defeat of
the year from Canadian waters,
having failed earlier this summer
to swim the Straits of Juan de Fuca
from Victoria to Port Angeles.

Bent Whyte - :

the way he feels it is. Anyway
I’m willing to concede that there
are two kinds of scribes — writ-
ers and sports writers. Sports
writers have a language all their
own and any resemblances to the
“well of English undefiled’ is
purely coincidental. If that man
from Mars learned his English
from the textbooks I’ll bet he
can’t make head or tail out of the
sport pages.

Of course the middle brows are
always trying to give sports writ-
ers a bad time.
lean over the rails of their tow-
ers to cast a bloodshot orb at the
offerings on sports, they break
cut into a rash of mutterings
about “Hollywood slang” and
“jow vulgar Yankee journalism’?
(Take it easy, fellows — this is a
family newspaper).

To them the “only acceptable
slang is Elizabethan slang. Intro-
duced by Shakespeare and hallow-
ed by tradition, it’s all right. But
‘wo will get you ten that if these
chaps had been around in Master
Will’s day, they’d have been sing-
ing tenor in the chorus that de-
nounced the Globe theater as a
“noisome stew.”

The justification for slang is
naturally when it tells the story
‘better and more colorfully than
any other phrase would. If it fills
a need then it becomes a part of
the language, otherwise, it’s as
dead in a couple of years as “23
Skidoo.” The language keeps
changing — dialectitions take
note — and words ,too, have their
ups and downs. Some words used
by Shakespeare in a specific and
unprintable sense have come up
in the world and today grace the
finest of literary effects. Others,
quite respectable in his time,
have hit the linguistic skidrow.

* * *

So the direetors of the Toronto
CNE hastily decided to give
Marilyn Bell'a bundle after she'd
set a new: world record for

Whenever they |

SPORTLIGHT

(Bert Whyte is on holidays and so Sportlight this week
has’ sent tn Keith Ralston gs a pinchhitter).

ae is a fellow down at our

print shop who keeps calling
me a “scribe.” He makes it sound
like a dirty word — and maybe

distance swimming in her epic
conquest of Lake Ontario.

Nobody but the inhabitants’ of
Babylon-by-the-Lake would have
‘Le nerve to dignify their county
fair with the name of Canadian
National Exhibition, | especially
when 75 percent of items like the
Grandstand show are neither Can-
adian or National.

_ But the rest of Canada is not
likely to forget in a hurry that
the heads of this same “Cana-
Gian” exhibition signed a contract
ior a cool $10,000 for an Ameri-
can to do the swim. And then
paid her $2,500 before she even
Gipped a pinkie in the lake. To
cap it all they spent the rest of
their energies keeping Canadian
swimmers out of the trial of
‘strength.

Personally I think that Mari-
lyn is right in refusing Chad-
wick’s professional challenge to
a race next year across the Straits
of Juan de Fuca from Victoria
to the state of Washington.

However I think that everyone
around these parts wants to see
Marilyn have a shot at the
Straits. And _I’d like to see it
taken out of the hands of com-
mercial backers. After all, the
original attempt this summer was
a newspaper circulation promo-
tion and advertising stunt.

Marilyn’s try should be spon-
sored by the people of British
Columbia for the good it would
do our sports. I see no reason
why the provincial government
can’t take the lead on our behalf.

* * *

B.C. Lions Department: There
seems to be only one sad answer
to the boosters cry of “Have we
got a team or have we got a
team.”

Incidental intelligence: The old
tom-tom telegraph tells me that
“Whitey” is doing pretty well for
himself at the track. Maybe it’s
‘hat lucky cork or perhaps he’s
got a blindfold and a sharp pin.
Anyway, you must admit that it’s
a real holiday to curl with the
Green Sheet every day. :

‘NEW YORK

is back from
impressed

Avery Brundage
Moscow, tremendously
by Soviet athletics.

Brundage, president of the «In
ternational Olympic Committee, at-
tended the annual sports festival
in Moscow. Some 36,000 compcti-
tors from six Soviet republics par-
ticipated and the festival — all
five hours of it — went off ‘“with-
out a hitch.”

“When I entered the stadium,”
he said, “I saw a large green
mantle covering the field that I
thought to be grass. It wasn’t. It
was a huge green carpet.”

As a backdrop, water sprayed
into the air, “giving a beautiful
fountain effect.” The audience
saw behind the spray 15,000 ath-
letes going through manoeuvres
with colored cardboard, “just as
we see at some of our football
games.”

Outside of Moscow he saw
sports activities, too — reportedly,
he said, there were 60,000 soccer
teams in the Ukraine alone, with
5,000 rated top-notch. In one small
community, 900 teams entered a
volley ball tournament, he said.

Brundage apparently did his
best to search out professionalism
in sports there. But he reported:

“So far as I can determine very

Brundage impressed
by Soviet athletes

few of the Russians are full-time
athietes. . The majority’: work or
go to school.”

He told how he had presented
to Nicolai Romanov, head of the
Soviet Union’s department of phy-
sical culture, press clippings from
the U.S. and:from Western Durope.
The newspapers claimed that in
the USSR athletes were supported
by the state and were professionals
and should not compete in the
Olympics.

But Romanov said this wasn’t
the case, that’ athletes there must
place their education+ and ‘their
jobs ahead of sports, and were not
professionals. ae

Brundage triumphantly report-
ed he brought back a statement
from the Olympic .head in. the
USSR “that they believe in. he
Olympic rules and follow them.”

The International Oiympic Com-
mittee head said, “Now. we have
this on record, and if we find any
abuses we can go to headquarters.”

His visit apparently had feiJed
to reveal any abuses. “Of course,
there undoubtedly are some abuses
in Russia as there are in all esun-
tries,’ he said. ‘“Evetywhere in
the world I am reminded of the
American college footbal) scholar-
ships, and asked if that is pure
amateur sport.” :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 17, 1954 a PAGE 11