Athletics of To-Day 1929

The Sprints-100 to 300 Yards 43 (r864) was B. S. Darbyshire, of Wadham College, Oxford, and the first English hampion (r866), T. M. Colmore, O.U.A.C. Both races were won in ro 2 secs. At the same time Eton College produced a phenomenal schoolboy athlete. This was the late J. H. Ridley. In r 66 he won the English quarter mile in 55 secs. and the following year retained that title, returning szi secs. He went up to Jesus College, Cambridge, and as a Freshman won the O.U.A.. quarter mile in 51 secs. and the event against Oxford in exactly the same time. But from that year he seems to have abandoned athletics in favour of other pursuits. In r868 \V. M. Tennent, of Liverpool, won the English title in rot secs., and then came the first great t n y ars of Univ rsity sprinters, among whom was the pr sent President of the A.A.A., ir l'vfontague hearman, .U.A.C. ( e Fronti pi ce.) In 1876 he won both the English Champion hip and Int r-Univ rsity roo yar s in ro J secs. and in r o took the English quarter mil in 52 t secs., hi brother, J. Sh arman, winning the same ev nt in 1878 in 52 ' secs. It was in 1878 also that a foreigner first captur d an Engli h title, L. Junker, a Russian member of the L.A.. , carrying off th roo yards in rot sec . His running car er \ as brief but brilliant, for h was only once b at n in his two y ars of competition. Wh n moving at sp d he had th app arance of b ing t rribly bandy-1 gged and ran with a stiff action, almost fiat-fo t d. H stoo 5 ft. 9 2 ins. in h ight and wa v ry strongly built, hi tiff action, I b liev , b ing due to his gr at str ngth. Th re is an amu ing 1 gend \ hich states that he came to tak up running through b ing chaffed by some f llow busin s m n in the city about his slow clumsin ss, wh r upon he chall ng d who v r might be d med th sp edi st of hi d tractors to run him for a bottl f champagne. Th b t \a tak n, Junl r won h nd down, and th cretary of the L.A.C., vid ntly as vigilant then as Mr. Lomax is to-day, recruit d th us ian as a m mb r. Although Junk r won th hampi nship of 1878, h never met his gr at cont mporary, E. . Trepplin, Brasenos College,