Harvard-Yale Track Team Favored In Oxford-Cambridge Meet Today

Harvard-Yale's combined track squad is favored to win its third straight meet with Oxford-Cambridge this evening at the Crystal Palace Track in London and thus take a 12-11 lead in the series which started in 1899.

Sunny skies and temperatures in the 70' scare forecast for the meet, which is the first of four on the squad's European tour. The Harvard-Yale team will also face the University of Birmingham and two teams of Irish athletes in Dublin and Belfast.

"They have a couple of fairly good distance men," Harvard captain Walt Johnson said yesterday. "But the team we sent over should beat them fairly easily, I think." Johnson did not make the trip because he didn't finish among the top two in his events in the Harvard-Yale meet last month.

Harvard Dominates Squad

The American squad is dominated by Harvard men. Of the 31 on the team, 21 are from Harvard. In seven of the events, both competitors will be wearing Crimson jerseys.

One of Harvard's records was set in the Oxford-Cambridge meet 50 years ago in Harvard Stadium when Ned Gourdin '21 jumped 25'-3" in the broad jump. Gourdin was the first man to exceed 25 feet, and his performance that day set a world record. Even this year, the two jumpers Yale is sending have not equalled 24 feet.

The American team will be handicapped somewhat today by the loss of Jon Enscoe, the team's top miler. Enscoe popped a blood vessel in his leg last week.

Recently, the four universities have decided to include Penn and Cornell in the series once again. When Oxford-Cambridge comes to the United States in 1973, it will have a meet with a Penn-Cornell team, which will travel to England every four years to compete against the Britons.