Athletics of To-Day 1929

Throwing the Discus 281 In the same year that the Games were revived at Athens in r896, when R. S. Garrett, U.S.A., won the Free Style Discus Throw at 95 ft. 7! ins., a distance that many a schoolboy can beat to-day, Athletic Associations were formed in Norway and Sweden. The latter country held championships in r896 at Halsingborg, where C. E. Helgesson won the discus event at 97 ft. 5 ins. In the following year C. Evenson became first Norwegian Champion. An American National Champion– ship also was instituted in r897, the throwing taking place from a 7ft. circle, instead of the regulation circle of 8ft. 2! ins. C. H. Hennemann, Chicago A.C., won the title at rr8 ft. 9 ins. At the second Olympiad, Paris, I900, a Hungarian named Bauer raised the record to rr8 ft. 2/ 11 ins., to which M. ]. Sheridan, U.S.A., added nearly rr ft. in r904 at St. Louis. That was the first of his three Olympic wins for in r9o6 at Athens, he reached r36 ft. o! in., and at London, r9o8, with a throw of I34 ft. 2 ins. defeated by less than a foot M. H. Giffm, U.S.A. (American Champion, I9IO, I35 ft. 6! ins.), and M. F. Horr, who had won the national title before leaving the States at I32 ft. 9 ins. The unlucky man, however, was big, blonde, 6 ft. Ville Jarvinen. He had recently set up a new world's record of I43 ft., but was so palpably nervous in the London stadium that he could not throw further than r2g ft. 4! ins., which gave him fourth place, just half an inch behind Horr. In America the National and Western Conference Champions were beginning to do big things, but the I.C.A.A.A.A. did not take up either this event or the javelin until r922. So far as Great Britain is concerned it is no exaggeration to say that none of us had seen a discus until that impl ment made its mysterious appearance just before the Olympic Trials in May, r9o8. Every sort of style of throwing the missile was tried, but no one hit upon the smooth waltz turn movement to which the Scandinavians introduced us later on. E. Barrett, a very hefty Irish shot putter of the City of London Police A. C., won the trial at ro7 ft. 2 ins., and with five others, who had not