Sport: Brand-New Hagg

Brand-New Hägg

Off-again, on-again Gunder (“The Wunder”) Hägg finally arrived in the U.S. last week. He did not swim over, as Manhattan newsmen had been suggesting he must be doing, during their month-long vigil at the docks; the speedy Swede came on a slow freighter, and he had sore feet from training-trots he made on the boat’s steel decks.

As long-haired and hollow-cheeked as ever, 157-lb. Gunder the Wunder had added an American “O.K.” to his vocabulary and, more important, he had a brand-new public-relations approach. Far from being the uncooperative, stubborn Swede who visited the U.S. two years ago, this time he seemed bent on pleasing. Said he to reporters in his best Garbo accent: “Because you have been waiting so long for me … I shall run Saturday” (just 50 hours after stepping off the ship). He knew, of course, that it meant almost certain defeat in the I.C.4-A Invitation Mile.

He set the pace for three quarters, tired badly, finished a bad last in a field of five. But to U.S. fans the try made him something more than twice the man they thought he was—and now he would be really great if he could conquer the boards in this week’s K. of C. Mile.