Athletics and Football (extract)

78 ATHLETICS Oxford, scored his first win in the Inter-University Hundred Yards, to the year 1879,whenE. C. Trepplin, ofB.N.C., Oxford, scored his last win at the same meeting, it is hardly too much to say that the pick of the best amateur sprinters came fromOxford and Cambridge. With Trepplin the race of Universitysprinters seems unaccountably to have reached an end, for from 1880 to 1886, as far as pure sprinting is concerned, not a single runner of repute has hailed from the Universities, although there have been plenty of fine performers at longer distances. Of these University sprinters, Wilson, whowon in 1869, 1870, and 1871,and securedthe championshipin 1869 and 1871(being beaten by Baker in 1870), was perhaps the pickof the lot. He wasa well-made man of medium height and weight,and ran in irreproachable style with a free stride, his body slightly forward and chest perfectly square. AfterWilson's retirement,W. A. Dawson,a Cambridge athlete who won both the Inter-Univer­ sity and Championship Hundred Yards, was decidedly the best runner of the next year. Dawson wasa shorter man than Wilson, but ran in much the same style, and though a small man was thick-set with a strong-looking chest and back. Of the succeeding University runners, Urmson, of Oxford,a tall thin man witha verylong stride, who wasa capable performer at any distance from 100 yards to a mile (a rare phenomenon), wasbetter at a quarter-mile than a sprint. As withsome others, his speed came from his long stride more than from a rapid repetition of the stride ; and he wasan inferior man at a sprint to Trepplin, the last and perhaps the best of the Oxfordsprinting celebrities. Trepplin, who won at the Oxford and Cambridge sports in 1877, 1878, and 1879, had a contretempsai the start of the Hundred Yards race at the championshipmeeting in 1877, and declined afterwards to compete at the championship meet­ ing. He was over six feet in height and weighed close upon thirteen stone, being big and muscularall over. His style was anything but pretty, for, although he bent his body wellforward when sprinting, he had a great deal of ungainlyarm action, and until fit found it difficult to run as straight as an arrowon his