At White City Stadium, London, last Saturday, Len Platt achieved yet another notable success when he represented England and Wales in the long jump against Scotland and Ireland in a triangular contest.
Although a little below his best form Platt won his event with a leap of 22 feet 7½ ins. and in doing so beat his main rival in this country in Cruttenden, of Brighton A.C. who was runner-up.
For the last two or three years Platt has been concentrating on the hop, step and jump and it is rather unfortunte that the long jump has proved, to be his best event so near to the Olympics as there is every reason to believe that given another twelve months he will be jumping up to a standard worthy of Olympic representation.
The British Olympic team does include a long jumper as the present standard is not considered sufficiently high but as Len's best jump of 23 feet 6 ins is they best by any Briton this season he appears to have missed Olympic selection by a mere 6 ins., as 24 ft. is generally regarded, as the Olympic qualifying distance.
It is worthy of note that Harold Abraham' English native record of 24feet 2½ ins. has now stood for over 20 years.
Platt would seem to be within striking distance of this great achievement as he may well produce the extra 9 inches by diet of steady training and slight improvement in technique.
Another consistent Wallasey athlete this year is Margaret Collings, who last Saturday was placed second in the long jump at the women's intermediate A.A.A. for the 15/17 age group at Birmingham. Her leap of 15 feet 8 inches is nevertheless considerably below her best of 17 feet and here again Wallasey have another splendid long jumping prospect.
On the same day Don Anderson travelled to Newcastle for the Northern Counties junior championships where he qualified for the final of the half mile. Today a strong Wallasey youth team are competing in an inter-town contest at St. Helens and should be well placed. This is being organised by the Lancashire and Cheshire youth activities council.
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Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 12/07/1952
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