Athletics of To-Day 1929

300 Athletics of To-day after half a dozen very fast turns. Incidentally the judges must have been in constant peril of their lives in those days, for a man might run or rotate as far or as fast as he pleased, and no one, least of all the thrower himself, could tell the direc– tion in which he was going to let drive. In the year r88r when the Universities first accepted the Championship rules to govern hammer throwing, W. Lawrence, O.U.A.C., who threw with only one hand, produced the ex– cellent distance of 120 ft. 2 ins. against Cambridge, and that was not eclipsed until the Cambridge " Blue," H. A. Leeke, the younger, threw 126 ft. 8 ins. in 1903. In r887 the diameter of the throwing circle was enlarged to 9 ft., and James S. Mitchell, mentioned in Chapter XXII, took his first English title at rro ft. 4 ins. ; in 1896 a shaft of flexible metal was approved of. Up to that time men had got " whip " into the hammer handle by using a shaft of malacca cane, instead of stiff wood, and the late Dr. W. ]. M. Barry, a genial Irish giant, who was also a great shot putter, established a record of 134ft. 7 ins. in r892, which still stands unbroken for a wooden-shafted hammer thrown from a 7 ft. circle. In America the pliant metal shaft had been legalized earlier and James Mitchell in his fourth Championship, 1892, had raised the U.S.A. record to 140 ft. rr ins., and W. 0. Hickok, Yale, had set the Inter-Collegiate record at 135 ft. 71 ins. The change to a 9 ft. circle made a marked difference in British records. In the first year under the new rule John Flanagan, Ireland (No. 4, Plate 54), reached I3I ft. II ins. He then emigrated to America and another Irishman, T. F. Kiely, was English Champion, with one break only, from r897 to 1902, recording as his best throw 148 ft. 61 ins. in 1901. He was also Irish Champion eight times, his best throw measur– ing 150ft. 31 ins. In 1900 Flanagan came over from America and reclaimed his English Championship laurels with the huge throw of r63 ft. 7 ins. This caused tremendous surprise in England, for he did not touch I55 ft. 41 ins. in the U.S.A. Championships until two years later. Flanagan, born in