Athletics of To-Day 1929

The High Hurdles 143 In the early months of I924 Sam Mussabini was very con– fident that Gaby would win the Olympic Championship, but there came a very bitter blow, the Government Department in which he was employed moving him to the orth of England, where there were no proper training facilities and no Mussabini to advise and coach him. Every athlete knows what this must have meant to a first-class hurdler in training for a world's championship. The effect is, indeed, seen in the facts that Gaby lost his English title to Atkinson in I5l!J secs., and at the Games in Paris was beaten in the semi-final by Christierns– son and Anderson in I5t secs. At Amsterdam he went through to the final, in which he was placed sixth, a fine performance for a man of thirty-three years of age. In that same year, more– over, his slowest time in his six biggest races was I5 secs. :flat. Now as to the actual technique of the event. ·The start must be made, of course, from the crouch position (see Fig. I and Nos. I, 2 and 3 Plate 5, hapter II), but the hurdler must rise to the true sprinting angle (see ig. 3, page 52) more quickly than does the sprinter, since he has only some thirteen yards to run to the take-off for the first flight of hurdles, which is set up fifteen yards from the scratch-line. He must make a careful study of the approach, take-off, and landing. A novice will clear from IZ ft. to I4 ft. in going over the hurdle; the expert takes off 6 ft. in front of it and, using the correct step-over action, body dip, and claw-down of the front leg, will land no more than 3 ft. or 4 ft. beyond it. Next comes the question of correct striding. Thomson always got into the crouch position with the right foot in front, so that in sev n strides he came to his take-off for the first hurdle, which he cleared right leg leading. I never saw Bob impson at work, but Mr. T. E. ]ones, Physical Director of the University of vVi consin, t lis us, in his exc llent book, Track and Field, that impson crouch d right foot forward, took eight strides to his take-off, and clear d the first hurdle left leg leading. Mr. ]on shad an opportunity of measuring Simpson's actual strides, and the diagram given on the next page is based