Athletics and Football (extract)

56 ATHLETICS medals of the Association. Each winner is to receivea small gold championship medal, which, let us hope, will remain an heirloom in his family. The second man in each race has a silver medal to keep. The bronze medals are for a different purpose, and may be regarded more as certificates of merit than as prizes. In most of the competitions, when a man is placed neither first nor second, but has done a performance which is of championship merit—for instance, has finished his half-mile under 2 min. 2 sec., or his mile under 4 min. 30 sec.—he is awarded the £ standard' medal. No standard medals are given for the hundred yards or hurdle races, from the difficultyof satisfactorilyfixing a standard and timing men to see whether they are within the standard time. Close by the winning post are gathered the reporters and the officials, while the rest of the greensward enclosed by the railings and cinder track is bare ; for the orders are strict that none but the recognised representatives of leading papers and the officials are to be allowed inside the enclosure. There are about a dozen reporters, therefore, inside the track with the officials. The judges, who have in athletics, as well as in all other work, arduous and delicate work, are all tried men. The first on the list is A. J. Puttick, an old runner of the London Athletic Club, whose gigantic form is always to be seen at a gathering at Stamford Bridge, sometimes, as now, in a frock coat and glossy hat, and at others in that quaint sesthetico-athleticgarb which marks his double character of amateur athlete and amateur violoncellist. Close by him is 1 Jack ' Reay, whoa few years ago was champion hurdler, and the best flat race runner in the Civil Service. These two, togetherwith G. P. Rogers, the Secretary of the London Athletic Club, and C. H. Mason, of the same club, once amateur champion at a mile and ten miles, are four of the men who have led the athletic movement in the metropolis for the last dozen years,and are, perhaps, the four best judges in London. The two last named are both on the ground to-day as members of the committee, but are not judging. The two other judges are E. B. Holmes, one of