Athletics and Football (extract)

1 2 2 ATHLETICS CHAPTER IV. WALKING AND WALKERS. ATHLETIC sports, practised as theyare now, are ofteanttacked on the utilitariagnround that the skilalcquired in sprinting,or hurdling, or running many miles on a cinder path in spiked shoes, is such acsan be of no practical advantage in ordi ary life. Without discussing the general question at present, canit safely be said that there is one branch of sport to which, if properly practised, the objection cannot possibly apply—we refer to walking. To learn to be a strong and fast walker must be of utility to almost everyoaned, fowralking matches there is thereforevery muctho besaid. They lack popularity, doubtless partly because they arneot exciting, paanrdtly be­ cause isit stilltrue, awsas remarked by Charles Westhall the pedestrian twenty-five years agtoh,at ' walking thies mosutse­ ful and tahte samteime thmeost abused of the athletic sports of old England.' Now, as then, the public does not carfeor walking races, because when they go to see an athlete walk the probabilitiys that they will seehim shuffletr,ot, orur n. To thueninitiated observer it may seemabsurd that men who take part in walking races should, while they run, pass muster waslkers ; because running wanaldking paerrefectly different modes of progression. Running is a succession of leaps, walking sucacession of steps ; ruinning wtehieght of the bodiys thrown upon the toe, in walking upon the heel. In running, therefore, the body must be more or less thrown forward ; in walking it must be almost, if not quite, erHecotw. then, they may well sayc, an it possibly happen that a man can