Athletics of To-Day 1929

Putting the Shot 329 McDonald, both of them veterans of Stockholm, by 3 inches at 46 2 ft., but a new Finlander, Ville PorhoHi (No. 3, Plate 6r) was also beating 46 ft. Personally, I thought PorhoHi would win and break Rose's eleven-year-old record of sr ft. A few days earlier, when Ernie Hjertberg, the Swedish Olympic coach, and I were together on the training ground, we had watched the husky young Finn at work and had decided that he would get a lot further if he kept his chin up in making the delivery. Hjertberg went across and gave him the tip. He acted upon it, and his next put, which we measured, was over 52 ft. In the actual competition, however, he dropped his head every time as he thrust the shot forward, and so had to be content with 48 ft. 71 ins. for his win in the final, in which Niklander and McDonald did not improve upon their preliminary per– formances, H. Liversedge, U.S.A., displacing his countrymen for their honours with a put of 46ft. 5 ins., an eighth of an inch behind Niklander, whHe E. Nilsson, Sweden, was fifth, and A. Tammer, Esthonia, sixth. Had PorhoHi been coached by a great expert like Hjertberg I think he would have done over 53ft., but when he came to England in 1922 and set the A.A.A. hampionship record at 47 ft. ro ins. the same fault of dropping the head was still painfully in evidence. Incidentally E. Nilsson, placed fifth at Antwerp in 1920, was the first foreigner other than an American ever to win an English Championship, when, in 1913, he increased our record to 47ft. 4t ins. ; since that time no British athlete except Dr. R. S. Woods, in 1924 and 1926, has held the English Championship title. The severe shaking United States athletes received in the field events at Antwerp evidently set the Americans to putting that particular part of their athletic house in order. And if there is one point mor admirable than another about the Americans it is their thoroughness. Their old shot putters had reigned perhaps a thought too long, but there was good material in the schools and notably Ralph Hills, of Hill School, Portsdown, who in 1920 raised the American Junior r6 lb. shot putting record to 44ft. ro ins., Clarence Houser (No. 2,