Athletics of To-Day 1929

The Long Jump only men who really could long jump, and we were all pretty eager, when we arrived in Paris for the 1924 Games, to get a sight of Hubbard and Gourdin. The result was disappointing. Hubbard's leg went back on him, and in the eliminating trials he started with a no jump, hit 23 ft. 4 ins. with his second, and no jumped again with his third, but got into the final, which he won at 24ft. 6 ins., not bad for a man with a game leg. Gourdin produced 23 ft. 7! ins. in the trials, and im– proved it to 23 ft. rot ins. in the final. The real surprise of the 1924 Olympiad was produced by a tall, well-built, white American, who added swing to the black men's mid-air stride. Robert Legendre had won the U.S.A. Inter-Collegiate long jump at 23 ft. 7 1 1 "8" ins., and the Inter– Collegiate Pentathlon in 1922, but was not considered good enough to represent America in the long jump; he did, how– ever, come to Paris in the Pentathlon quartette. And in that contest took the world's long jump record up to 25ft. 6 ins. I was standing close to the pit when he thus exceeded by nearly 2ft. any performance he had ever done before, and I have never in my life seen a long jumper rise so high nor get such an amazing tt lift." His body was right back from the hips when he started his tt hitch-kick," and he whipped his trunk up from the waist like lightning when he brought his forward leg back. It was at Paris too that I first sawS. Cator, a coal black Haitiian, who also beat 25 ft. a year or so later. De Hart Hubbard, meanwhile, had gone back to the States, very sick at his ill-luck, but not grousing, only quietly deter– mined to get back to form. This he accomplished, and on June 13th, 1925, at Chicago raised th world's record to 25ft. rol"O" ins., and there it still stands, for although he cleared actually 26 ft. 2 ins. in rg28, that record was not accepted, on the grounds that the level of the take-off board was one inch higher than the surface of the landing pit I In England the art of long jumping has fallen on very lean times, and we have never had an athlete who was up to the present world's championship standard, although H. M. Abrahams was a fine long jumper as well as a great sprinter.