What Makes a Champion
Clip 1: Physique, aptitude and technique
2 min 48 sec
Taken from the documentary What Makes a Champion (1959)
Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be G
Collection: National Film and Sound Archive
Availability of the complete title
Curator’s clip description
Body size and shape will often indicate the sport most suitable for any particular athlete. Athletes illustrating the differing body types are shown including: Olympic champion Charles Morris, Olympic weightlifter Manny Santos, Captain of Australia’s athletic team Kevin Gosper and Olympic swimmer John Devitt.
The aptitude and natural style present within athletes is exemplified by young swimmer Darryl McGraw who does laps in a pool. At the Professor Cotton Memorial laboratory, sports physiologist Forbes Carlisle measures Darryl’s power output.
To illustrate technique, Olympic track and field athletes Marlene Mathews and Betty Cuthbert are shown training with their coaches.
Curator’s notes
The use of slow motion to capture athletes movements in this clip emphasises the physicality of sport and the various ways sport impacts on the body.
Poppy de Souza, curator
have teachers’ notes.
