At White City, London, on Saturday, Wallasey A.C.'s international long jumper Len Platt had to be content with second place the Inter-Counties long jump, thus losing the title he won in these championships last year.
Jumping generally was not up to the usual high standard of these championships, and 22ft. was exceeded only by Platt and the winner A. K. Cruttenden of Brighton A.C. whose winning leap was 23ft. 1in. against Platt's 22ft. 2½in. A possible reason for the moderate performances is that the contestants were allowed only three jumps against the usual six.
Although second place in what is virtually the English closed championship is really quite an achievement this was certainly not one of Len's best days, as in recent training he has exceeded 23ft. on several occasions and a few days before going down to White City he even topped the 24ft. mark.
It is possible also in Platt's case that the edge was taken off his jumping by his efforts in the 100yds. dash, in which he ran splendidly for Cheshire. Many of us in Wallasey A.C. have long thought that Platt would have quite a future as a sprinter if he was not so occupied in long jumping and his running on this occasion would certainly seem to confirm this. He succeeded in getting through his heat to the semi-final, but just failed to get third place, which would have made him one of the six finalists. In his heat he was second only by inches from Olympic man Brian Shenton, while in the semi-final he was one of the four runners who finished close behind the Trinidad flier McDonald Bailey. These included joint English native record holder Robin Pinnington and Platt was judged to be fourth only after some discussion. In the high jump on Whit Monday, Len was again below his best and both he and the Liverpool star Brian Freeman failed at 5ft. 9in.
Today at Stockport the Cheshire County team relay championship will be held and Wallasey A.C. will be strongly represented. This race is the mile medley made up of a half mile, quarter, mile and two 220yds and with Don Anderson and Bob Fullerton available, for the half and the quarter, with the sprints being taken by Dave Johnson, John Prydderch, or Len Platt, the Wallasey team will take quite a lot beating. At the same meeting Len Platt will compete in both the long jump and the 100yds sprint.
Club championships held recently will be reviewed in this column next week.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 30/05/1953 by R.M.
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