An Athletics Compendium

The Uterature of Athletics of the United States,Dinnieobserved that the Scottish-AmericanWilliam Goldie (later Director of Physical Education at Princeton University) dived headfirst over the crossbar.Dinnie was almost certainlydescribinga primitive'dive straddle', a technique precluded in amateur athletics until a change of rules in 1938. Similarly, the Scot McCombieSmith describesin 1898a side-ontechnique (whichwas essentially a crude form of 'WesternRoll 5 ), a methodwhichthe literaturedescribesonlya decadelater. The 'Fosbury Flop', essentially a back layout scissors jump,was created by the American Dick Fosbury in 1967, but a fellow American, Clinton Larson, jumped in excessof two metresin the 1920susinga side-onback layout.Only the rules obtainingat that timeand the unforgivingnatureof the landingareaspreventedLarson from taking the next step, the curvedrun usedby 'eastern cut off jumpers,to turn his backlayout into a flop. There was little differencein principle between Larson's techniqueand that of Fosbury,and Larson's high approach-run speed also anticipated the velocities of the Russianstraddle jumpersof the early1950s. Fullleft-foot contact hammerturns haveusuallybeen consideredto havebegun in the late1920s or early1930s,but the literaturehints that theymayhavebeen executedas earlyas the latenineteenthcentury.And, though thehitch-kickin long jumpis thought to have originatedin the 1920s,it almost certainlyappeareda decadeearlier.Similarly,one of Dean Cromwell's flicker-books of 1938 clearly shows an O'Brien-type throwing position in shot put, over a decade before it was 'invented' by the American Parry O'Brien. Athleticsin the pre-war periodwas poorlydeveloped.Only in the UnitedStates did any depth of coaching culture exist, and even in the USA there was little communication between coaches.The degree of communication was even poorer at internationallevel. Thus, in the highjumpsequenceof Leni Riefenstahl'sfilmof the 1936 OlympicGames we see frontal backlayout (1870s),easterncut off (1890s),westernroll (1910), back layout (1920s),and straddle (late 1920s) all in the same competition. In contrast, in 1972, fiveyearsafter the 'FosburyFlop' first appeared,over ninetypercent of maleinternationaljumperswereusingthe newtechnique. This, of course, had littleto do withathleticsliterature, but rather reflectedthe influenceof television. In Britain,the post-World War I periodsaw the growth of technical literaturefrom Oxbridge sources, from such writers as Harold Abrahams,Guy Butler,Jack Lovelock and The AchillesClub. Littleof theirwork derivedeither from theoryor from a bodyof coachingexperience,but contained the best of the conventionalwisdomof the period. Guy Butler'sworkwassignificant in its useof excellentsequencephotography,and the Achillesbooks had the advantageof being writtenbyspecialist athletes.The biasof many of theseworkswas towardsrunning and theywereaimedat publicand grammarschools, rather than the harrier-basedclubsystem.The best of these is probably (1938). No technicalwork writtenin Britainin the 1900-50periodcan be compared, in its humanity and in its wealth of practical advice, to the American Dean Cromwell's ChampionshipTechniquein Trackand Yield (1941). Cromwell'sstillimmenselyreadablebook derivesfroma quarter of a centuryof experiencewithin the Americancollegiatesystem. [xl]