An Athletics Compendium

The literatureof Athletics During the period1960-80WilfPaishand myselfwereamongstthe most prolific Britishwritersin trackand field,producinga streamof worksderivedfrom an increasing body of pracdcal experience. Until my Modem Schools Athletics (1970) the curricular teachingof the sport had been a relatively barrenarea. Though I attempted to take a realisticviewof what could be achieved withinthe classcontext ModemSchoolsAthletics was, in the main, unrealistic in many of its technical expectations. The book, a compilation,failedto addressthe practical realitiesof teaching largegroups of childrenof varying ability. It is probably at its strongest in the opening chapter on teaching philosophyand in the book's concludingdiscussionsectionbetween the contributors. Statistical literature was rare until 1951, and the publication of the McWhirter twins' seminal Get to YourMarks!. This wasfollowed,in 1964, byRobertoQuercetani's A WorldHistoryofTrackand FieldAthletics, a richsourceof information,though againshort on the historyof professionalathletics. But, though increasinglyreplete with statistical works,the literatureof the last twenty-fiveyearshas been insomewaysHamletwithout the ghost, in that there is littlementionof the drug ingestionwhichbeganto corrupt the sport in the period followingthe 1964TokyoOlympics. Indeed, even statisticalworks showing performancegraphs of the post-1964 period, revealing massive,inexplicable jumps in performance, make little mention of illegal pharmaceuticals. Similarly, the statistical works of the late1980s make little, if any, comment on sudden surges and regressionin performance,particularly in women's eventswhere there can nowbe littie confidencein any record from sprints to 10,000m. It is probably true to say that the statisticalworksof the last quarter of the centuryare essentially worksof fiction. In the technical literature,it is onlyin the Canadian coach Charlie Francis's book SpeedTrap (1991) that there is any frank discussionof drugs.Francis willlivelong in infamy as the coachof the disgracedBen Johnson, but it is difficultnot to feela twingeof sympathy for him, for the technicalcontent of SpeedTrap shows him to be intelligent and creative, unquestionablycapableof coaching at world level. Franciswasmerelyone of hundreds of coachesthroughout the world who colluded directlyor indirectlyindrug ingestion,but one of the fewto be exposed and vilified. This beingsaid. SpeedTrap, with its descriptions of Francis's athletes arriving at his flat for a beer, a video and an injection, paints a profoundlydepressingpictureof modern athletics. Since the end of the Second World War, British technical literature has always stronglyreflectedits nationalcoachingscheme.Thus, the literatureof the 1950stended to leantowardsthe biomechanical, reflectingthe influenceof the AAAchief coach,G. H. G. Dyson. The post-Dyson period was one in which there was no clear technical leadership. Coaches felt free to move away from the restrictions of a biomechanically-biaseadpproachand authors such as Paishandmyselfattempted to mix sciencewithpragmatism. The 1980s, withFrankDickasDirector of Coaching, movedto a more clinical approach, influenced byEastern European methodology.The growing body of practical experience of such coaches as Ted King, Peter Coe, BruceTulloh, HarryWilsonand athletessuchas SteveBackleyhas made the period leadingto the end of the century one inwhichscienceand practiceare beginning to come into balance.This [ xliii ]