Athletics of To-Day for Women

164 Athletics of To-day for Women ground than when one is sailing through the air. The arms also are wrong in that they are lt flying wide." Picture 99 shows Fraulein Becker in the course of the race at Frankfurt on July zr, 1929, when she made her German 8o metres Hurdles record of rz ~secs. Here again her position is absolutely perfect. It should be carefully contrasted with that of the girl on her right hand who is wasting so much in h ight over the hurdle, and shows bad left arm balance, that of the girl immediately on her left who has a lovely spread, but a too exaggerated body dip and a left arm action which is dragging her shoulders all out of true and must affect her breathing; also with the girl on the extreme left whose arms are going wide and whose back knee is being pulled through far too soon. emember that the rear hip-socket action provides the compensation, which enables you to preserv a straight course, as shown in Picture roo of J ssie McMillan, English Women's University record holder, and train th -refore to get the hips as loose as possibl , but r m mber al o that this action is not nearly so exaggerated as in men's high hurdling, that it has less snap, and gives your leg more f a cir ular s' ·ing– over movement than the quick snap over and kn c-up-to-the– shoulder which you will see the men high hurdlers practi in()'. Over a high hurdle th back knee has got to be snapped up to reduce the clearance height, but with 2 ft. 6 ins. fenc s the clearance may be by a sufficient margin to permit of an asy side-swing action of the rear knee, as shown in Picture ror by Florence J. Bell, Canadian r cord holder, wh should not have twisted her houlders to the left to get her back leg through. Now let us take the clearance stage in brief detail. \i\Then the take-off sr ot is reach the kn e of the l g which is to pass first ov r th hurdle is raised in an exaggerat d high-stepping action. We will assume that the 1 ft 1 g is to 1 ad. Then, as the left knee rises, the right leg straightens out in the push off (Picture 94), and the right arm goes forward with the left leg. But not to such an exagg rated d gree as i shown by the girl on Fdiulein ecker's left hand side in I ictur 9 . The left leg should be allowed to g f . rward rom the knee downwards in