Athletics of To-Day 1929

The High Jump in schoolboy performances just prior to the period of Brooks's greatness. For example, the high jump at Merchant Taylors' School in r872 was won at 4 ft. 9 ins., but in 1875 we find L. F. E. Despard winning in the same open class at 5 ft. 5 ins. from E. W. Williams, 5 ft. 3 ins. and A. V. Despard taking the under sixteen event at 4 ft. 7 ins. At open sports meetings however, the standard appears to have been much the same as it is to-day, i.e., 5 ft. 3 ins. to 5 ft. 5 ins. Meanwhile Am rica had begun to take an interest in the sport with the foundation of National and Inter-Collegiate Champion– ships in r876. The Americans were not very good at first, as is proved by the fact that H. H. Lee, Pennsylvania, took the second Inter-Collegiate title at 4 ft. rr ins., while the lowest height that has ever won at the Oxford and Cambridge ports is 5 ft. 4! ins., and the lowest English hampionship win is 5 ft. 2 ins. The average of winning jumps for the first eight years of Championships in America was Inter-Collegiate, 5 ft. 3 ins., and National, 5 ft. 4:. ins. In r887, W. Byrd-Page, oi Pennsylvania University, U.S.A., believed to have modell d his tyle on that first used by Brooks, crossed the Atlantic, and English sport men received a shock, for he stood but 5 ft. 6 ins. and y t had touch d the big heights. The American, howev r, met his match in the English hampion, . \V. Rowden, a slim, youngish-looking athlete from Teignmouth in Devon, who had cleared 5 ft. rrl ins. the year b fore, and who now tied with Byrd-Page at 6 ft. The Devon man took but a short run and leapt clear ov r the bar, while the American, with a walk-up approach, shot his 1 gs over straight in front of him before wriggling hi body back to the perpendicular and landing almo t und r the bar. At Stonebridge, later that year, yrd-Page cl ared 6ft. 3! ins. and in r8go owden did 6ft. 5 3 in ., but the A.A.A. would not accept the record owing to some doubt concerning the 1 v 1 of the take-off. These two fine athl tes w re succeeded in the world's cham– pionship class by another ((little marv 1." This was Mike Sweeney, the fath r of the oldest form of modern, standardised