Athletics of To-Day 1929

322 Athletics of To-day hammer, and 56 lb. weight. At the first English Championship Meeting, I866, however, the weight of the shot was accidentally I8lb. IO ozs., and C. Fraser, London, must have been a strong man indeed to reach 34ft. IO ins. with it. By a curious coin– cidence the shot was again over-weight sixty years later when Dr. R. S. Woods, C.U.A.C. (No. I, Plate 58 and No. 4, Plate 6o), made the present British Nation record of 44ft. II ins. I believe that I am correct in stating that the first man ever to beat 40 ft. was E. ]. Bor, a gigantic Royal Engineer, who was a member of the London A.C. In I872 he took the English title at 42 ft. 5 ins., and retained it in the following year with a put of 40 ft. The preceding years were notable for the performances of H. Leeke, C.U.A.C., and R.]. C. Mitchell. In I868 Leeke won the English hammer throw at 99ft. 6 ins., the following year he took the Oxford and Cambridge hammer throw at I03 ft. II ins., and the English shot put at 3I ft. 4-l ins., and was English Hammer Throwing Champion again in I87o (I02 ft. o ins.), and I872 (III ft. 7 ins.). A love of heavy weight field events runs, evidently, in this family, for in I903 his son took the Oxford and Cambridge hammer (I26 ft. 8 ins.) and shot (37 ft. 2 ins.), and in I906 won the English hammer throwing title at I23 ft. I in. In I9o8, Henry Leeke, the younger, represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games in a number of events and in I9II won the 56 lb weight slinging championship at 25ft. 2-! ins. He was a genial young giant in those days, a good 6 ft. 3 ins. in height and as blond and brawny as the popular conception of a Viking. The day of that first English 56 lb. weight slinging championship I shall long remember. It was held at a sports meeting at Mayland in Essex. George Hogsfiesh, now Assistant Secretary of the A.A.A., met us as we got out of the train, and the first question he askedwas-had we brought our weights with us? It was a broiling hot day, and the answers that came from Leeke and Edward Barrett were amusing but unprintable. Finally, we all trooped round to the local butcher's and bor– rowed a half-hundredweight for the competition.