Athletics of To-Day 1929

Athletics of To-day rg8 ft. IIi ins. from ]. ]. Saaristo, Finland (No. 7, Plate 40), 192 ft. 5-lo- ins. The other contest was decided on the best aggregate total-that is to say, each competitor threw first with his right and then with his left hand, and the best throws with each hand were added together. The results set out below will be illuminating to any one who has tried to throw with the hand he is not accustomed to use: Right Hand Left Hand. Both Hands. ft. ins. ft. ins. ft. ins. J. J. Saaristo, Finland 200 I•57 rs8 10·29 358 II·86 W. Siikaniemi, Finland 177 5·5 154 319 331 9-/TJ "211 V. Peltonen, Finland 175 g· 4 153 1 328 I0·34 E. Lemming, Sweden rgr 4'45 132 !•03 323 5•48 That was the first time 200 ft. had ever been beaten, and I believe that both Saaristo's left hand throw and his aggregate total constituted world's records. By this time the Scandinavians had built up a really first– class technique of their own, but they received no little assist– ance from that enterprising firm, Messrs. Sportsarticles, of Helsingfors, inland. We, in England, had to use the most appallingly "whippy" ash-shafted weapons, but Mr. Arno Hohenthal, of Sportsarticles, envisaged the merits of Finnish birch. H knew that the further north the trees grow the harder the wood becomes. A transportable saw-mill was set up in the midst of the sel cted for st, and only the sun-side, outer layers of the birch tre s were selected for javelin shafts. From this wood the vitamin was extracted by a sp cial proc ss to pr vent warping, and consequently a shaft was obtain d that stays so rigid in flight that a birch-shafted jav lin of this typ v ill fly 30ft. to 35 ft. further than one that is shafted with ash. The one disadvantage about these beautiful implem nts is that they snap easily in the hands of the inexp rt thrower, a circumstance that has prevented many clubs and schools from taking up the sport. Recently, how-