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Show EUROPEAN STARS TO TRAIL NURMI Foreign Athletes Get Inspiration Inspira-tion From Finn's Success Suc-cess on This Side. Charles W. Paddock, California's renowned sprinter and record holder, hold-er, who returned recently from his round-the-world tour, says that track and field athletics are destined soon to take front rank in international Sport and that the tremendous development de-velopment he noted In foreign fields presaged stiff competition for America if it expects to maintain its supremacy on the track. There already are three nations declares de-clares Paddock, which have made track athletics their major national sport. These are Japan, Germany and Finland. In other countries . the development de-velopment is growing apace, he claims, and in many lands there are athletes who either must be ranked today as the greatest in their fields, or who will be supreme with a few more years of intensive training. Paddock, who left last March for the Orient, accompanied by Loren Mnr-chison, Mnr-chison, the Newark sprinter, visited 16 countries during his tour and competed com-peted In more than 100 races, a feat never before done by an American athlete. Germans, he said, were going wild over Houben and more than 55,000 persons attended the meet in Berlin in which Houben faced Paddock and Murchison. Edwin Wide and Petterson, a great hurdler, are Sweden's outstanding athletes, he said. Tanl, another great sprinter, Is the center of attention in Japan ; Van der Berg is arousing great Interest in Holland, while Guillemot, who defeated Nurmi in the 1920 Olympics, has all France stirred up. Nurmi, he said, is the man of the hour In European athletics, and his tremendous success in this country probably will lead to a general invasion in-vasion of foreign stars. "They all want to come over," says Paddock, "to duplicate Nurml's achievements." Among the countries In which Paddock Pad-dock competed were Japan, China, the Philippines, India, Ceylon, Egypt, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Den-mark, England, Norway, Holland and Finland. |