Athletics of To-Day 1929

28 Athletics of To-day first of the modern Olympiads was celebrated at Athens, 6th to rzth April, r8g6, in the ancient stadium, which, fifteen hundred years before, had last been used for such a purpose. One may mention in passing that the stadiun1 had been rebuilt to seat 45,000 spectators through the munificence of a Greek merchant, Mons. Averoff, of Alexandria, at a cost of over a million drachmas. The athletic track and field events formed the basis upon which the great modern Olympic Games programme was constructed, for the simple reason that these sports do not form a national game peculiar to any one nation, and so afford greater facilities for the meeting of all parties on a common ground. Apart from athletics, however, there were contests in gymnastics, wrestling, pole climbing, lawn tennis, fencing, rifle and revolver shooting, weight lifting, swimming and cycling. These matters, extraneous perhaps to a history of athletics, are mentioned to give the r ader some idea of the magnitude of a modern Olympiad. Practically the whole of the European nations w re represented, besid s America, Australia, and Great ritain. At the time, however, the Olympic Games did not command the world-wide attention which is now accord d them, and in England particularly but little was known of the festival. In consequence of this circumstance Great Britain was but poorly represented; but had all our best men gone over to Athens there seems little doubt that we should have won the High Hurdles, Long and High Jumps, and the hot ut, judging by a comparison of the Olympic results with tho e at the A.A.A. Championships. As it was, Flack, of the L.A. ., won both the 8oo and r,soo metres titles, Gemelin, O.U.A.C., was second to T. E. Burke, U.S.A. in the 400 metres, and Goulding was an unlucky loser in a slow hurdle race. Even Am rica does not se m to have taken this first modern Olym– piad very seriously, for the United States sent five men from Boston, and four from Princeton, who, although each winning an Olympic event, were not the holders of American Champion– ship titles.