Athletics of To-Day 1929

·-~---- ~- 30 Athletics of To-day won eighteen events. In the running and walking events Great Britain scored six victories, while America won the Marathon, two fiat races, and both hurdle races, and the British Dominions took the two sprints. In the field events however, Great Britain won only the Hop, Step, and Jump, as against America's nine titles and Sweden's two. By the time of the fifth Olympiad, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark had become definitely athletic nations, and France, Germany, and the lesser European countries were all showing steady progress. At Stockholm the Americans, although winning again, found their supremacy strongly challenged, especially by Finland and Sweden. The sixth Olympiad was destined for Berlin in rgr6, but never took place. The Great War might have been expected to prove such a set-back to the contestant nations that any thought of holding the seventh Olympiad in its proper year, rgzo, would have been deemed impossible. The keenness of the late Rev. R. S. Courcy Laffan prevailed so far as Great Britain was concerned, and we have to thank the London A.C., that bed-rock upon which British athletic sport was built up, for a great work that was carried on during the \Var. There were, of course, many members of the L.A. . who were too old or otherwise unfit for active service, and these men saw to it that athletic sport in our English nurseries, which are the public schools, was kept healthy and vigorous by the carrying on of the Public Schools hampionships in the years between. These hampionships deserve a chapter to themselves, but, as it is, a few words must suffice. All over the world the movement for the better sporting education of juvenil athletes has been making steady progress during the last thirty or forty years. In America the universities and colleges, as well as all the high schools of any standing, have properly qualified athletic coaches. In rgo6 the Schools Athletic League of New York came into being, and upwards of 8,ooo boys take part in its annual championship meeting, while anything up to 3,000 boys take part in the elementary schools indoor championship gathering.