Athletics and Football (extract)

ATHLETIC MEETINGS 211 It will thus be seen that in future the A.A.A. propose to restrict the makingof records witrheiansonable limits by only recognising those w ich are authenticated and maduepon fair grounds under fair conditions, in legitimate competitions and at recognised distances. These regulations will prevent any second-rate runner from securing a record, and will make it more likely than of yore that the 'record-holder' will be the best man over the distance. In spite, however, of these reforms in the system—reforms which it is as yet doubtful whether ptuhbelic or the press wbiell contento accept—we are still inclined to object to record-worship upon wider and deeper groutnhdasn that the systemis inconclusive and carried to absurd limits. Our generianldictment against the systemof paying rever­ ence ato record because it is a ' record,' is that the systemis unsportsmanlike, and has demoralised the wholoef the present generation of runners. The essential merit of every athletic contest, ofasevery othecrontest of skill or endurance, is for one matno bepitted against another man. The rivalry and the desire wtoin andnot tolose bring otuhte pluckth, e skilal,nd the endurance of all the competitors. It is ina contest with his equals or his betters that a man becomes, as the Greeks would have sai'db, etter than himself,' oaunrd owpnoets have expressed in many differewnat ys the joyous exultation of the brave warrior when he knows he will meet a foeman worthy of hissteel. From the days of chivalry up to modern times one otfhe things which has made the English nation brave has been the praise bestowed upon the knight, swordsman, boxer, or runner who was ready to encounter any one who challenged him. At the present day that part of the nation which patronises the athletic ground awards more praise to the man who has scampered past a field of inferior runners quickly than to the man who has pluckily met and beaten other ' cracks' in a level race. Had this view pre­ vailed in the Middle Ages the champion knight would not have been he who kept the ringagainst all comers, but he