Athletics of To-Day 1929

Athletics of To-day record at 7 ft. ot in., and at thirteen won the Bedfordshire Colts under fourteen years old Championship at 8ft. 2 ins., and a year later cleared 8 ft. ro ins. Joan at eleven years cleared 7 ft. 2! ins., and Peggy at nine was doing 6 ft. 8 ins. Girls should not go on vaulting much beyond the age of twelve, but boys who are well grounded in the rudiments of the art from the time they can toddle should do something big later on, provided the fond parent neither asks nor expects too much of them and thus sickens them of the sport all too soon. The fact that pole vaulting is slowly but surely coming back into the schools is undoubtedly the best assurance for Great Britain's athletic future, and that we need some such guarantee is clearly revealed by world's statistics, based on performances at past national championships and subsequent records for the particular country. To take just a few cases for the sake of comparison. In sixty-two years British pole vaulters have produced an improvement of rot ins., Norway in twenty-nine years improved 4ft. 4! ins., and America 4ft. 5 ins. in exactly half a century, while Japan has in eight years produced one man capable of touching 13ft. and three or four to beat r2 ft. At the Olympic Games there has been an improvement of 2ft. rr! ins. in thirty-two years. The process of evolution has been steadily pressed forward, there have been marked improvements in pole vault form, and yet the present amazing records are not entirely due to the man and his methods. Imp dimenta too has played an important part. tyles have been standardized, and skill has increased, but neither would have sufficed without smooth cinder surfaces, supple bamboo vaulting poles, and the slid way which is the latest adjunct to accurate endeavour. At the time the change was made from poles of spruce, hickory or ash, to lighter ones of female bamboo, it was believed that the greatest possible vaulting height had been achieved. Tall, h avy men who could run fast were strong enough to support the weight of a solid pole, but they found their limit at just over r2 ft. because the cross strain on the wood at greater heights was too great for the heavy man to compete in