Ladies in the Pool

A sign on the door leading from the men's locker rooms into the tan-tiled swimming pool of Chicago's Lake Shore Athletic Club last week said: "Ladies in the Pool; Please Wear Suits.'' The ladies in the pool were the members of that little band of champion swimmers whose wet faces and shining legs make a semi-annual fresco for newspaper sports-pages. The behavior and the appearance of the group remains the same from season to season; its personnel undergoes minute but steady variations. Helene Madison, who used to paint her fingernails crimson and swim a faster crawl than any of the others, turned professional two years ago. Lenore Kight, a dark, agile swimmer of Homestead, Pa., who took Miss Madison's place at the outdoor championships last summer by winning four championships, found her position challenged by a Seattle girl. Olive McKean, coached by the Washington Athletic Club's famed Ray Daughters. There was another new name last week-- Mrs. Arthur Jarrett--but sports-page readers had no trouble identifying her as Eleanor Holm. Eleanor Holm used to be spoken of as a Follies girl because Florenz Ziegfeld once offered her a job she did not take. Last week she was described as returning from a career in Hollywood because, after the 1932 Olympics, she accepted a cinema contract that led to a crumb part in one picture and to marriage with Crooner Jarrett. Most of the other names and faces at Chicago last week were familiar--Anne Govednik of Chisolm, Minn., muscular and bright-eyed, who held the U. S. outdoor record for the 100-yd. breast stroke; Dorothy Poynton. a platinum blonde from Los Angeles with a wide, toothy smile and a penchant for fancy bathing suits; tiny Katharine ("Minnow") Rawls, the boyish freckle-face from Miami Beach who won her first U. S. championship in 1931, when she was 13. From four nights of splashing and thrashing in the Lake Shore pool there emerged last week ten national indoor championships and two world's records. Individual titles: 300-yd. medley -- Katherine Rawls 100-yd. free-style--Olive McKean Low-board dive--Katherine Rawls 100-yd. breast-stroke--Doris Shimman 220-yd. free-style -- Lenore Kight 100-yd. back-stroke--Eleanor Holm Jarrett Highboard dive--Dorothy Poynton 500-yd. free-style -- Lenore Kight

Most versatile of the group of girl swimmers, Minnow Rawls proved it more conclusively than ever last week. Her time in the medley--100-yd. breaststroke, 100 yd. backstroke, 100 yd. free-style-- was 4:12.2 (2.6 faster than her own world's record). The other world's record was Mrs. Jarrett's 1:10.4 in the 100-yd. backstroke, more than six seconds faster than her best previous official time. In the highboard dive, Minnow Rawls placed second to Dorothy Poynton. She beat Miss Poynton narrowly in the low-board event, after her opponent's final dive, a running front jackknife with a half twist, caught the judges' eyes.

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