Elis Favored to Hold Title In Heptagonal Track Meet

Yale, strong and confident in the field events, is favored to retain its championship in the 20th annual Heptagonal Games at Soldiers Field tomorrow afternoon. In a special mile race, Josy Barthel, the Olympic 1500-meter champion, will run his first American outdoor race against a select field of four.

The Elis have lost two of their top runners, Ross Price and Joe Albanese, because of injuries, but their power in the field should be enough to edge out Cornell, Harvard, and Army, their main threats.

Stew Thomson, Tom Henderson, and Bill Donegan are the key performers for Coach Bob Giegengack's squad. Thomson and Henderson should take one and two in the discus, while paicing high in the shot put and hammer throw. Donegan is picked to win the pole vault.

Even though he didn't score against Harvard last week, Don Miller can win the javelin toss. He has already thrown the javolin 194 feet.

As the meet shapes up, it looks as if there will be tight battles in almost every race. The only one which seems certain is the mile run, where no one seems capable of beating Army's defending champion, Low Olive.

Bob Rittenburg of Harvard, MacAllister Booth of Cornell, and Don McAulliffe of Navy all may break the meet record of 14.4 for the 120 high hurdles. McAuliffe, the favorite, has already run 14.3 for the distance. Booth should win the 220 low hurdles.

440 Looks Open

The 440 looks wide open with defending champion Fred Schlereth of Columbia favored. Harvard's Dave Alpers, Cornell's Andy Dedagian, and Princeton's Joe Meyers should threaten him.

Director of the meet Asa Bushnell has announced that a Bulova photo-timer will be used for the meet. It will probably be the final judge in the 100 yard dash, a toss-up among Yale's Hank Thresher, last year's winner; Harvard's Pete Dow; Penn's Alan Kline and John Haines; and Cornell's Larry Lattomus, where the meet record of 9.7 may be broken.

Paul Raudenbush of Penn and Jack Meader and Mike Stanley of Yale will probably finish in that order in the 880, although Meader may upset last year's winner. Raudenbush's 1:51.8 last year is a meet record.