Athletics of To-Day 1929

CHAPTER XXI THROWING THE HAMMER HAMMER throwing, like the other three throwing events, is of an antiquity almost as great as that of running and jumping, but the hammer is of even more purely British origin than weight putting, for it was practised under the style of roth cleas, or the wheel feat, at the institution of the Tailtin Games of Ireland in r829 B.C. ; Cuchulain, the mythical Irish Hercules, was the first champion, according to The Book of Leinster, and in 1928, 3757 years later, his countryman, Dr. Pat O'Callaghan, for the first time in modern Olympic history, deprived America of the Olympic hammer throwing title. Perhaps it is fortunate for the present generation that legend does not relate what mark Cuchulain made nearly 4,000 years ago. The next noble figure to flash across one's mind in the recol– lection of great hammer throwers is, of course, King Henry VIII, who was, by all accounts, extraordinarily efficient at flinging the stiff-handled blacksmith's sledgehammer. There was also Achmat, the last Emperor of Turkey, mentioned in Peachem's Compleat Gentleman published in r6zz. He made one throw so mighty that two great pillars of marble were set up in Stam– boul, presumably to mark the spot from which he threw and the place where the hammer landed. Coming to modern times, we find that there were no throwing events included in the first Oxford and Cambridge Sports programme of r864, but a year later the shot put and throwing the cricket ball were instituted. E. A. Gray, C.U.A.C., won the latter event at 103 yards 2 ft. 3 ins., but in r866 it was abandoned in favour of a hammer throwing event, won by G. R. Thomton, C.U.A.C., at 87ft. 7 ins. The first man ever zg8