Athletics

2 ATHLETICS. collectively quinquertium, but now more generally recognized as the Penathlon; these were (i) running, (2) leaping, (3) wrestling, (4) boxing, (5) disc-throwing. To winall five events was the highest attainable honour. Apart fromthese, there were horse-and-chariot racing, and, for the dilettanti, contentions in poetry, eloquence,and the finearts. Coming to our own country, itis centuries before any­ thing distinctlyrelated to athletics can be traced. In the fourteenth century,mounted competitions, such as " tilting at the quintain" and the " tournay,"were more popular than trials of speed or strength; later on quarterstaff was a favourite, though very rough, form of rivalry. Wrestling for all time has been indulged in, and prize-fighting became recognized as a sport to be chronicled whenFigg became the first champion in1719. All through the eighteenth century thereis very little to notice, pedestrian matches rarely taking place, and were only irregularly recorded, but a feware tobe found reported in the Gentleman's Magazine. Thus we read in that interest­ ing periodical for June, 1764, p. 266 : "A foot race wasrun on the Deptford Road on 17 May, 1764, by two tanners; the winner ran nine miles in 64minutes." In the same year, on 6 Aug., "a match took place between two milk- and two fish-women behind Montague House." Occasional affairs of this kind are to be discovered by the diligent searcher in old literature; but it was not until early in the nineteenth century thatathletics, ina fugitive sortof fashion, began to engage the attention ofthe sport-lovingmen of the period. Foremost amongst these were the famous triowho made up the "Athletic Triumvirate"—Squire Osbaldeston, Captain Ross, and Edward Hayward Budd. The first ofthese was best known as a rider, the second as a rifle shot, andthe third as an all-round athlete, who was,according to the " clocking "