Euro Continent vs Euro Isles as curtain-raiser to Bulldogs vs Port

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Euro Continent vs Euro Isles as curtain-raiser to Bulldogs vs Port

Authored by: Cam Homes
on Sunday, August 19 2012 @ 09:41 pm ACST

Hi Guys.

I would like to relate a personal experience to explain why I think you are wrong about playing the EC Final as a curtain raiser from the players perspective.

Some time after the 1868 Mexico City Olympic Games, Tommie Smith and (I think John Carlos) and a few other world class athletes competed in Adelaide by invitation at Olympic Sports Field at Kensington, home of the SA Amateur Athletics Association.

IF you are not familiar with the Tommie Smith/Black Power story just google Mexico City Olympics Black Power

The athletic meeting was attended by a huge crowd by SA athletic competition standards for the time. (SA athletics standard in world athletics then probably akin to Europe footy standard in AFL now) The best of SA sprinters ran in that invitation race, and I would have done so in a flash if I had been good enough at the time. A few years later I twice made the SA State Final over 200metres (Putting me in the top 8 over 200metres in SA) and was probably damn close to running at the standard to have deserved an invitation (tho I probably wouldn't have got one as my club came from the wrong side of town :-) )

Our club did win the 4 x 100 metre relay SA State Championship and I do have a Gold Medal that has State Champion inscribed on it. My point is that I would have been very p----d off if SA AAA had run that invitation meet in conjunction with the State Championships just to get more spectators to the State Titles. As an athlete competing at that level (I was only running for my club and district) to have my fleeting moment of glory over shadowed by the Invitation Race would have had me and the rest of my team pondering whether it worth continue in the sport. (One member of our team did continue and placed 4th at the Edmonton Commonwealth Games over 200metres behind the likes of Don Quarrie and other West Indian stars).

The guys in the EC Final will be competing for their country and I don't believe they would be too impressed with their 'moment" of glory being overshadowed by an exhibition game even with the quality of the teams playing. It would be devalueing the EC FInal.

I did attend the invitation meet and Tommie Smith was awesome (the Usain Bolt of the era) and if my memory serves me correctly Brett, the prominent Adelaide lawyer who has just become Heather instead of David was one of the SA runners in that 200 metre invitation race.

Footnote: Tommie Smith and John Carlos both, I believe, attended the funeral of Peter Norman(the Aussie who split them for the Silver Medal) when he passed away not long ago. Shows how much respect for they had for him.

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