Our Maori Race in Sport.

New Zealand can never hope to organise athletic exercises on the same grand scale as that which characterised the 11th Olympic Games, but there is one matter in which a little attention may bring forth bounteous results. I refer to the encouragement, the proper systematic encouragement of the Maori race in sport.

In Rugby football the prowess of the Maori players needs no stressing, but what has been done by our coloured brothers in Rugby fields could easily be eclipsed in other branches of sport.

A certain amount of organisation has been done by the swimming authorities, and the rise to the forefront of Billy

(Photo., E. W. Rich).
One of the ever popular Christchurch excursion trains passing through Cora Lynn Station, South Island, New Zealand.

Whareaiti and the juvenile star, Nawe Kira, should serve to impress on officials the real talent available. Maoris are at home in the water, and what a great advertisement it would be for the Dominion if New Zealand could send a fully representative team of Maori competitors to the Olympic Games in Japan in 1940.

Four years hence! Four years soon pass by and before we know it the Games will be here again. In the meantime there is room for organisation in sport.

What the swimming world can gain by encouraging the Maori competitors applies equally as forcibly to the track and field section. Maoris are blessed with that mysterious “something” that eludes most European athletes—balance and rhythm. Watch a Maori compete in the hop-step-and-jump and you will see the perfect example of timing and synchronisation. Even if he has never had ten minutes of instruction he will have an advantage over the other competitors. Many years ago I saw Maori athletes getting within a short distance of the New Zealand record for the hop-step-and-jump—and they were jumping without any assistance from spiked shoes!