Athletics of To-Day 1929

CHAPTER XVI THE LONG JUMP THE long jump is one of the standard field events in Great Britain, and it gave us our youngest champion in C. L. Lockton, Merchant Taylors' School and L.A.C. At Merchant Taylors' Sports in I86g he competed in the ''under I4" class and won the IOO yards in I3 secs., 440 yards in 67 secs., high jump 4 ft. I in., and long jump I3 ft. 5 ins. It may interest the reader to know that at that same meeting W. G. Grace, the famous cricketer, won the Strangers' Quarter Mile race by 2 yards from W. F. Eaton, the ivil Service champion, in 53 secs., whereas the English hampionship of the same year was won by the great E. J. Colbeck, L.A.C., in 53! secs. In I873 Lockton, at the age of sixteen years, won the English hampionship at I9 ft. 4 ins., and at the L.A.C. Summer Meeting cleared 2I ft. 4 ins., beating the L.A.C. jumper Lucas (20 ft. IO ins.) and Ward of Mote Park . . (20 ft. 7 ins.). Before he left school this sturdily built lad, whom I have mentioned in other chapters, and whose portrait appears in Plate I, cleared 22ft. He was Engli h Long Jump Champion again in I875 (20 ft. IO ins.), I879 (22 ft. I .. ins.) and I88o (22 ft. 7 ins.). He was a first-class hurdler and sprinter too, and very nearly in the first flight of high jumpers, for in I877, when G. W. lathwayt, C.U.A. ., became Engli h hampion at 5 ft. 6 ins., Lockton cleared 5 ft. 7 ins. at the ivil Service Sports. F. H. Gooch, O.U.A.C., won the Oxford and Cambridge long jump of r864 and r865 at under rg ft., but no one, except A. G. Grant-Ash r, O.U. .C., who won at I9 ft. ro ins. in I885, has since failed to beat 20 ft. In the English Cham- 204