Athletics and Football (extract)

ATHLETIC MEETINGS 209 size. There need be no difficultyin the sizeof a dial in a fixed apparatus, and the consideration of expense hardly ought to arise when it is considered that sixty, eighty, or a hundred guineas are often given for the best timingwatches. Closelyconnected with the subject of ' timing' is that of £ records.' We have already given our opinion that in short races it is somewhat unsatisfactoryat present to place reliance upon a ' fifth' of a second, and it is well known that in any race up to 220 yards the differenceof a fifth of a second may make a ' record.' But quite apart from questions of timing, the state of the path, or of the weather, and especiallythe direction and forceof the wind, maymake a differenceof two-or three-fifths of a second in a sprint, or of the same number of seconds in longer races. The inference would seem to be obvious that the fact of a man havingcovered a certain space of ground in a shorter time than any other runner, does not by any means necessarily prove that the man who has performed the feat is the best man whohas ever run that distance. If this result is borne in mind, we can see no reason for placing the acquisition of a ' record ' as the summit of an athlete's ambition. Yet this is exactly what is done by both athletes and the public at the present day, who consider the possessor of a ' record ' a man farmore to be envied or admired than his companion who has met one byone his best opponents and beaten them. The popular opinion, too, having once laid down a record as the highest possibledistinction,has encouraged athletes to the most absurd limits in honouring the record. Records are gravely chronicled at distances which are never run as races,and we hear that Myershas made a record at 130, 360, or 1,100 yards, or that George has shifted the record for three miles and three-quarters, these record times havingbeen taken by a man stationed at a particular post to note the time as the runner went by. Another practice which in our opinion is illegitimate is that followed by the cyclistswho allowa record to be secured at any time whether in a race or not provided they are satisfied of the ' timing'; and an aspiring amateur accordingly maygo p