At Jones Beach

Eleanor Holm, who looks so much like a film actress that she has become one, kept her 220-yd. backstroke championship in a fraction of a second less than her own world's record of 2 min. 57.8 sec. Minnowy little Katherine Rawls of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.--without Georgia Coleman, who turned professional last year, to bother her--ran off with the loft. spring board diving title, 132.44 points to Dorothy Poynton's 123.64. Less freckled than she was a year ago but just as versatile, Minnow Rawls broke her own world's record in the 300-meter medley championship, barely missed regaining her 220-yd. breast stroke title which went to Margaret Hoffman of Scranton, Pa. Helen Meany, who was the best platform diver in the U. S. from 1921 to 1928, tried to make a comeback. She hurt her wrists, neck and shoulders so badly preparing for the final that she had to withdraw but her younger sister, Mrs. Frances Meany Scofield, got second place, nearly seven points behind golden-haired Dorothy Poynton of Hollywood.

Spectators at the women's swimming championships at Jones Beach, L. I. anticipated results like these last week. They anticipated also that the meet would produce some sort of successor to Helene Madison, who like Georgia Coleman turned professional after last year's Olympics. Nonetheless, no one except possibly her coach, Jack Scarry, foresaw the exploits of a mop-haired, broad-shouldered girl named Lenore Kight, who (like Josephine McKim and Susan Laird of the 1928 Olympic team) was entered from the Carnegie Library Athletic Club of Homestead, Pa.

On the first day of the meet, Lenore Kight--who lost by a handbreadth to Helene Madison in the Olympic 400 meters --won two events. Using a free-style (crawl) stroke with even more arm-pull than Miss Madison's, she finished the 100-meter final in 1:10.8, with Olive Hatch Voight second by two feet. In the mile she had an easier time and beat Susan Robertson by 30 yd. When Helene Madison retired last year she held 16 out of the 17 of the world's free-style records up to a mile and it looked as though most of them would last indefinitely. By last week, one of Helene Madison's records was smashed and all the others had grown fragile. Lenore Kight swam 440 yd. in 5 min. 33.6 sec., or six seconds better than Helene Madison's fastest. Next day, she was anchor on the Carnegie Club Library Relay team that won the 880-yd. championship with a world's record of 11 min. 10 sec. She finished off her week by winning the 880-yd. championship, setting a new world's record for 800 meters on the way.

Unlike most girl swimmers--who soon acquire exaggerated bonhomie and so much sophistication about posing for pictures that screen tests are almost superfluous if and when they get to Hollywood --Lenore Kight is almost timid in demeanor. Now 20, she learned to swim when she was 13, in the pool which is part of the equipment of Homestead's public library. Her teacher was Jack Scarry, who was on the Army water-polo team in 1918 and who educated Homestead's other able swimmers. Before his proteges enter a race, Coach Scarry greases the armholes of their suits with vaseline. One reason for Lenore Kight's bashfulness and the fact that, despite her achievement a year ago, she was regarded as a new face last week, is that the Carnegie Library Club has a hard time getting Homestead sufficiently enthusiastic about its swimmers to finance more than two or three short trips a year.

In the sleek little band of girl swimmers whose shiny legs, flexible bodies and sunburned hair annually decorate rotogravure sections and newsreels, Lenore Kight's was not the only new face last week. Spectators at Jones Beach took special interest in a preposterous little tadpole named Mary Hoerger who, aged 9, took fourth place off the loft. springboard. Like 16-year-old Minnow Rawls, whose three little sisters and one little brother are all swimming champions of some sort, Mary Hoerger comes from an aquatic family. Her mother is an instructor at the Roman Pools at Miami Beach; her three little sisters and one little brother swim for four hours every day in a pool behind their house. When Mary Hoerger wants to perfect a new dive, her mother swathes her in sweaters, allows her to practice from a six-inch board into a pile of sand.

Organized by the New York Daily News, last week's meet served to advertise also one of the most efficiently managed public beaches in the U. S. Gertrude Ederle, still deaf from her Channel crossing seven years ago, watched from the grandstand until someone gave her an official's badge. Georgia Coleman tried to teach Eleanor Holm how not to do a back dive.

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