An Athletics Compendium

The Literatureof Athletics doping and the breaching of amateurrules,our failureto support an Olympicboycott in 1936, or the death struggles of the British Athletics Federation. Thus, though the economics of publishing make it unlikely, there is a need for a substantial history of Britishathletics,before manyof its twentiethcenturyprotagonistsdepart the field. ModernOlympichistory(particularly the last quarter of the twentiethcentury)is another areawhich is ripe for freshliterature,preferably writtenbyauthors who havenot inhaled the heady vapours of 'Olympism'. So, also, is the socio-political history of international athletics, but all such literature requires the impartiality and rigour of professional historians of the calibre of a Gardiner or a Duff Hart-Davis. Similarly, though biographyhas always been a typeof fiction,1 wouldhope that future athletics biographers would push the envelope to provide a more realistic picture of modern athletics. Kural Games 'Pas de documentation,pas d'histoire' best describesthe pre-1800period, Thom's Pedestrianism (1813) beingour only clear window into the literature of pre-nineteenth centuryathleticsperformance.Alas, Thom makesno referenceto hurdlesor fieldevents and only passingcomment on sprints. There is, therefore, littlereference in the formal literatureto track and field athleticsprior to 1800. This does not, however, mean that the sport did not exist, for it undoubtedly enjoyedparticularlyvibrant lifein rural Ireland,north-westEnglandand the Bordersand Highlandsof Scotland. That lifewas, however,a parochialone, of localchampionsrarely venturingto compete far beyond their homes.Only with the rapid developmentof the railway system and transatlantic travel in the second half of the century did these champions begin to travel beyond their villages and develop national and even internationalreputations.In Scotland,thisdevelopedwithina primitive HighlandCiames 'Grand Prix' circuit, similar to that which had occurred in the Mediterranean two thousandyears before, but without offeringcomparableincomes. Shearman, in his monumental Athletics and Football (1887), makes only passing referenceto ruralsports, givingthe impressionthat theyhad disappeared,supersededby the amateur movement, and shows little understanding of their extent or quality of performance.This is understandable, since Shearman undoubtedly saw athletics as a middle-classmovement,bringing'lesserbreedswithinthe law'.McCombieSmith, in his The AthletesandAthletic SportsofScotland (1891) understandablytakesa more robust and perceptiveview,and givesus our best pictureof the personalities and performances in the HighlandGames of the secondhalf of the nineteenthcentury. McCombieSmith's workunderstandablycentres on what wasan essentially field events culture and on throwing events in particular. He makes it clear that a major problem in making judgements on performance lay in the variable conditions under which Highland Games took place, for this was not a world of take-off boards, flat runways and standard implements. Thus, McCombie Smith has to deal with shots, hammersand ringweightsweighinganything from141bs to 561bs,slopingthrowingand [xxi ]