At Lake Placid

Score* Score*

U. S. 103 Hungary 7 Norway 77 Rumania 4 Canada 49 Italy 3 Sweden 26 Poland 3 Finland 25 Belgium 1 Austria 15 Czechoslovakia 1 Germany 12 Great Britain 0 France 10 Japan 0 Switzerland 9

Last week's Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid were handicapped by the fact that winter sports are more fun to practice than to watch, by intermittent snow, rain, thaw. Main competitive features of the games were: i) the surprising defeat of the Norwegians, who won most points in 1924 and 1928, in the skating races and the 18-kilometre lang lauf (ski race); 2) the amazing incompetence of the Japanese, who had come to the Olympics at their own expense to become better acquainted with winter sports. The Japanese fancy skaters, who had studied this sport in books, found it hard to keep their footing. Japanese speed skaters were outdistanced; two Japanese skiers were injured by turning somersaults olf the ski-jump and another, who fell down in front of the schoolhouse, amused Lake Placid children by his inability to get up.

Bobbing. Most elaborate addition to the Lake Placid plant was the $250,000, mile-and-a-half bob-sled run down the side of Mt. Van Hoevenberg. In the two man bob-sled (boblet) races, the best Europeans were a 20-year-old Swiss sophomore at Zurich University, Reto Capadrutt, who steered with ropes instead of a wheel, and his elderly brakeman, Oscar Geier. Best U. S. bobbers were J. Hubert and Curtis Stevens, of Lake Placid who, apparently beaten by a slow first run, heated their runners with an acetylene torch to make them go faster. Steersman J. Hubert Stevens set a new course record (1:57.68), beat the Capadrutt boblet by 1.54 sec. for four runs.

Peering into the long white trench of the Mt. Van Hoevenberg run, steep and tortuous as a market graph, 20,000 spectators at the more perilous races for four man teams were hopefully horrified by anticipating casualties like those in the pre-Olympic trials. The races, repeatedly postponed by bad weather, were finally run without mishap on a slow track. A U. S. sled steered by William Fiske, U. S.-born Londoner who won the Olympic championship in 1928, won with 7:53.68 for four runs, with another U. S. team second.

Ski-running. Olympic ski-runners usually carry, in unlabeled tubes which they distinguish by smell. 50 kinds of ski-wax. The problem in a race is to use the right kind. Johan Grottumsbraaten, of Norway, champion in 1924, lost the lang lauf. Two Swedes--Sven Utterstrom, heretofore a long distance champion, and his teammate, Axel Vikstrom--came in first, with two Finns behind them. Arne Rustadstuen and Grottumsbraaten were fifth & sixth. Next day, Grottumsbraaten's two jumps of 161 & 163 ft. were in good enough form to give him the combined (ski-running, ski-jumping) championship.

Ski-jumping. The length of a jump on sMs depends largely on the topography of the hill. Ski-jumpers, who use especially wide skis with three grooves instead of one, to make them go straight, are judged on form. Ski-jump judges first picked 19-year-old Hans Beck of Kongsberg, Norway for two jumps of 232 and 208 feet. Then they changed their decision, ranked him second to another 19-year-old Kongs-bergian, Birger Ruud. Red-cheeked Ruud, who works in a gun factory, and whose older brother, Sigmund, finished seventh in the same event went 218 ft. on his first jump, 226 on his second, got 228.1 points to Beck's 227.

Figure Skating-- Two eleven-year-old British girls, Megan Taylor and Magdalen Colledge, amused the crowd. The U. S. champion, Maribel Vinson, and Belgian Mme Yvonne de Ligne, did well. But the best girl figure skater in the world was still 19-year-old Sonja Henje of Oslo, Norway. Behind her, on the stand, sat her immense, red-faced father, Wilhelm Henje. He said nothing. Mrs. Henje, however, told their daughter what part of the ice to use, instructed her to keep her beady toque straight on her head. Attached to her dress, Sonja Henje had a rabbit's foot which she did not need. Her performance--a Paulsen, a spreadeagle, a Lutz jump, a Jackson Haynes spin, a backward sweep to the finish--was less original than polished and assured, but it caused 8,000 spectators (one of whom paid a speculator $60 for two tickets) to agree with the judges when she won the championship.

Karl Schafer of Austria had more difficulty than he expected in beating his arch rival, Gillis Grafstrom of Sweden. Grafstrom, a week before the men's figure skating championship, had hurt his leg but was sufficiently recovered to take 1,496 points for his school figures and barely lose by 2,602 to 2,514.5. A debonnaire French couple, Met Mme Pierre Brunet, won the championship for pairs.

Hockey, The score, after each of the four teams had played the others twice: Canada n, U. S. 9, Germany 4, Poland 0.

Spectators. Admiral Byrd said he was looking for Norwegian ski-runners for his next polar expedition. Mayor James John Walker of New York said he was "recuperating." Mrs. Alfred Smith congratulated Mrs. Shea, wife of the town butcher whose son won the 500 & 1,500-meter skating championships.

* Points in the Olympic games are unofficially computed by awarding 10 for first place, 5 for second, 4 for third, 3 for fourth, 2 for fifth, 1 for sixth. Officially, there is a winner in each event, no winners of the Olympic Games as a whole.

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