AUG 13: AMSTERDAM: August 11. Although unable to punch his hardest owing to a fear of breaking his badly damaged left hand, New Zealand's Edward (Ted) Morgan triumphantly won the Olympic Welterweight Championship.
The result was never in doubt after an even first round, and even the Argentinas wholeheartedly applauded the referee's decision.
Morgan deserves the fullest credit, not only for better boxing and generalship, but for his unusual courage in coming through four hard fights with a dislocated knuckle in his punching hand, which became so bad in the last two days that the whole arm was affected.
He actually fought a winning fight, despite his inability to straighten out his arm.
Morgan is going to hospital on arrival in London tomorrow, but there has never been a more cheerful patient.
The New Zealander has done even better than he himself expected. Morgan gradually wore out his opponent, and increased his advantage in the last round, in which Landini vainly endeavoured to counter long range hitting by covering up his face.
Landini showed himself to be a hard hitter, gruelling Morgan with lefts to the body, but the latter's extended right foiled many punches. It was an excellent, fast fight, and the verdict was the only one possible, Landini throwing his arms round the New Zealander's neck even before the official decision.
Morgan, in the dressing room, said: "I feared all the time that my hand was going to let me down as I felt it give at the first blow.
Thereafter I was careful and I did not hit too hard in case I hurt myself more than I did Landini.
WELLINGTON: August 14: Edward Morgan, the one and only New Zealand representative to make good at the Olympic sports in Amsterdam, was only 21 years of age on the Saturday before the team left Wellington. He has been undergoing instruction in boxing from the doyen of the game in Wellington, Mr Tim Tracy, for three years past, but before that, when a pupil at Wellington College, he showed himself to be a natural boxer.
At college he first won the flyweight championship, then the bantamweight, the lightweight, and the welterweight, usually knocking out his man with his powerful straight left. He later figured in the Wellington and New Zealand boxing championships, and won the lightweight championship last year. Morgan was a lightweight and has since developed into the welter class.