Athletics of To-Day 1929

Athletics of To-day At Antwerp, England had only one entry, B. Howard Baker, who was in for the high jump and hop, step, and jump also, and, if my recollection serves me, he did not take part in the discus event. The others, however, had a great competition, in which Niklander, 146 ft. 7 1 3 0 ins., beat Taipale, 145 ft., with A. Pope, U.S.A., third, 138 ft. 2y 7 -rr ins. All three made their best throws in the eliminating trials, but Zallhagen, who was always a lethargic thrower, increased 3ft. in the final and was placed fourth at 134 ft. 9 ins. That year P. Quinn, of the Dublin Police, took the A.A.A. title at 123 ft. Sl ins., Taipale having set the British record at 144 ft. 6! ins. in 1914. Many people had regarded Duncan's record as a freak performance, never likely to be repeated; but the rso ft. mark was now definitely in sight. Pope, although beaten at Antwerp, had made a Pacific Coast record of rsz ft. 7 ins. in 1920. In 1922 he was beaten by Tom Lieb, of Notre Dame (No. 3. Plate so), at rsr ft. Pope was a tall, heavy chap who had developed a style entirely his own, and in learning it practised two or three hours every night on style movements alone. In the same year Finland sent to England, Ville Niittymaa, who won the A.A.A. event at 136 ft. 7 ins. He was a short, thick-set fellow of exceptional strength and quickness, and I remember, while we were awaiting our turns to throw, he showed me his right hand-the ends of the fingers were hard with corns produced by the pulling spin he put on the edge of the discus. By the next year he had got his form worked right in, and at the international meeting in connection with the Gothenburg Exhibition, 1923, he threw 154 ft. o-! ins. I threw against him in England and watched him in Sweden, and the improvement a year had produced in his form was amazing, but typical of discus throwing, at which game a man may work for years with moderate results befor the whole sequence of action knits sudd nly together and the really big throws are produced. G. Steinbrenner, second to Niittymaa at Gothen– burg (139ft. o! in.), was the first German to show real form. In England that year no foreigners competed for the A.A.A. title which G. T. Mitchell, University of London, had the