Athletics, The

Australian Way

If Athletics the Australian Way had set out only to inspire the young athlete, the authors could have claimed a modicum of success. But it attempts, with the aid of over 20 past and present Australian athletes, to cover too much ground.

In 25 chapters every track and field event is reviewed, either by a title-holding athlete or a former star.

Inevitably, the big names are there, Ron Clarke, Herb Elliott, John Landy, Ralph Doubell and current world steeplechase record holder, Kerry O’Brien.

Each gives an insight into the demands, the skills and the tech niques required of their individual events but they overrun themselves when they touch on the aspects of training and instruction. We don’t get enough information about train ing and instruction, but this is not the book for it anyway.

These are two very important issues which should have been left to Athletics the Australian Way, Part 11.

Then, the coaches could have had their say. As it is, Australian Olympic ’ ay Weinberg, in chapter four (half a page), is emphatic that every athlete needs a coach.

The authors could have accom plished more had they furthered their comments on the human side of athletics—the thrills, tensions and disappointments of competition. •ii 128-page book, liberally illustrated with black and white action and strip photographs, is more an annual and not, as the dust cover claims, a manual.—MH.

(Athumcs The Australian Way,

$4 sof by R ° n C arke - Lansdowne Press.

Dr Sione Latukefu, acting head of the History Department of the Uni versdy of Papua and New Guinea, !u° rt »^ oresby ’ has recen tly completed tbe w S ? OT . a book on the influence ot Methodist missionaries on the develo P ment of Tonga, ioZz-75. He is currently researching a work on the impact of Methodist missionaries in Melanesia from 1875 to World War 11, particularly Islander missionaries, and would be glad to bear of relevant unpublished materid.