Athletics and Football (extract)

ii4 ATHLETICS long sailed away from him, and eventuallywon the race out­ right, Slade giving up. In the summer championshipof 1879 a two-mile steeplechase wasincluded in the programme,and waswon by H. M. Oliver,an old London paperchaser,who for some years previousto that date had settled in Birminghamand become the leader of the athletic movement in the midlands, and founder of the famousMoseleyHarriers Club. Oliver was only a moderate performeron the flat, but wascertainly a very clever jumper, never wasting an ounce of his strength, and he beat, in 1879, C. L. O'Malley and the other Londoners by the clever way in which he got upon the top of the hurdles and jumped from them clean over the water-jumpwithout an effort. Of late years the best steeplechasers have nearlyalwaysbeen the bestpaperchasers of the day, the ordinary flat-racerunners having little opportunity to practise jumping without taking part in cross­ country runs. The best Londoners have been C. L. O'Malley, who, however, never, we believe,figured as a paperchaser, and J. T. Wills, an old Oxonian,who was good on the flat also. Strangelyenough, as the sport is a verygenuine and interesting one, steeplechasing is quite unknown at athletic meetings at the Universities; and what makes this still more strange is that in hurdle-racing—a kindred sport—the 'Varsities uniformly produce some of the best men in everyyear; indeed, of the twenty-three hurdle-racingchampions up to the date of writing, sixteen have hailed from Oxford or Cambridge. HURDLE-RACING.— In the early days of amateur athletics hurdling and steeplechasingwere considered as kindred sports, the former being a test of short-distance running plus jump­ ing, the latter of long-distance running plus jumping. So much wasthought of this judicious combination that the first Inter-University meeting at Oxford,in 1864, had two hurdle races and a steeplechase out of eight events, the remaining items being three flat races and two jumps. The two hurdle races were at 120 yards and 200 yards,each having ten flights of hurdles. The former distance, however, soon became the more popular jand the committee whodrewup the programme