Athletics and Football (extract)

RUNNING AND RUNNERS 79 course,as most sprinters do naturally. Strangelyalso, though possessed of great muscularstrength, he was quite incapable of stayingany distance, and though he could, whentrained, run 150 yards in a level 15 seconds, could not rely upon himself to run 220 yards, and was unable to stay home in any longer sprint than 150 yards. Had Trepplin competed in the championship of 1878,however, he could hardly have beaten the Russian, L. Junker, whowas the Hundred Yards championof that year. Junker, like Trepplin, never attempted anything but the shorter sprints, and was only once beaten in his brief and brilliant career upon the running-path during the season of 1877 an d 1878, when in July 1877, in a level Hundred Yards race at Birmingham, he ran third to J. Shearman and H. Macdougall, both of whom, though sprinters of the first class, were lucky enough on that occasion to meet Junker on one of his off days. Junker was 5 ft. 9 in. or 5 ft. 10 in. in height, and had a very stiffaction, running almost on the flat of his foot ; but though ungainly he was of great strength in the legs and back, and to these qualities his speed was doubtless due. The story of his introduction to the running-path in England is rather a quaint one. On one occasion he appears to have been ' chaffed' by some business acquaintances in the City as to his clumsinessand slowness. Upon this he remarked that he was a good runner—a remark which was followed by a roar of laughter. The Russian thereupon waxed warmand volunteered to run one of the mockers for a bottle of champagne. The match was made and came off at Stamford Bridge, when Junker beat his opponent, who was a fair athlete, by the ' length of the street.' The result was that he joined the L.A.C. After winning a few handicaps he soon found himself at scratch, and able to win from that position; and, as was noticed above, was only once beaten. Unfortunately he did not meet Trepplin during his year of supremacy upon the path, but Bob Rogers, the ground-man of the L.A.C., who trained both athletes at different times, was stronglyof opinion that in a match between them there would have only been one