Athletics of To-Day 1929

The Long Jump 209 to nothing in the way of teaching or training while at school, and outside the Universities there is no encouragement given them to go on competing after they leave. In Sweden, where matters are managed differently, the schoolboys' record stands at 22 ft. 9! ins. and the national record, made by a Swede, is 24 ft. 6 ins. The Norwegian national record is 24 ft. 6! ins., with Germany's record at 25 ft. ri ins. and that of Holland 23ft. rrt ins. There is indeed reasonable ground for doubting if we as a nation are very much ahead in long jumping of our forefathers of a hundred years ago, since Donald Walker published a book in r834, in which he said" On level ground 20ft. is a first-rate leap, 2r ft. is extraordinary, and 22 ft. is very rarely accom– plished," and if you add to that " by English club jumpers of to-day," it just about sums up the state of things in England. The first adjunct to successful long jumping is, of course, speed. We have seen that De Hart Hubbard, the world's record holder, could sprint his (( roo" in evens, while Reggie Walker, who won the Olympic roo Metres in 1908, could nearly always clear 22 ft. in the long jump without the slightest pretension to actual skill; or, again, Alva Kranzlein, the first American to beat 24ft., was also former holder of the world's 120 yards hurdles record of r5l secs. To prove the case for speed, take the following mathematical calculations: Example.-A, B, and C, each weighing 140 lb., jump 22ft., but approach the take-off board at different rates of sp ed– A at 40 yards in 5 secs., B at 40 y rds in 6 secs., and Cat 40 yards in 7 secs., speeds representing velocities of 24, 20 and 17.14 feet per second respectively. To clear 22 ft. the jumper's impulse must generate an initial velocity of 26.5 ft. per second. Hence there is an increase of 2.5 ft. per second for A, 6.5 ft. per second for B, and 9·34 ft. per second for C. The formula by which the impulse generated may be found is as follows : P == m (u- v) p