Sport: Preview

In London last week was staged what was tantamount to a preview of the Olympic Games to be held in Helsinki next summer. At White City Stadium 95 hand-picked track & field stars representing 16 nations competed in the British A. A. A.'s annual international track meet. Before 60,000 onlookers, the U. S. team of ten won eight of the 14 events, broke two British records (440-yd. hurdles and shot put), piled up 54 points—13 more than Great Britain, 29 more than Germany, 38 more than Italy.

In the 1936 Olympics, the No. 1 hero was Negro Jesse Owens of Cleveland, winner of the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash and broad jump. Last week it appeared that the 1940 Olympic hero would be another midwestern U. S. Negro, 190-lb. William Delouis Watson, University of Michigan senior. In last week's meet at White City, rangy Bill Watson scored 13 of the 54 U. S. points: first in the shot put (with a record-breaking heave of 52 ft. 8 in.), first in the broad jump (24 ft. 6 in.) and third in the discus.

Son of a Saginaw, Mich. dressmaker, Bill Watson—who is earning his way through college by waiting on table and acting as secretary to Prize Fighter Joe Louis—is considered the best all-round track man in the U. S. Besides winning the Big Ten championship in the shot put, broad jump and discus three years in a row, he has cleared the high jump at 6 ft. 5 ¾ in., has run 100 yd. in 10.1 sec., 440 yd. in 55 sec. If he can brush up on the pole vault, javelin, high hurdles and the 1,500-meter run, he may be America's best bet for the 1940 Decathlon championship.