Coaching and Care of Athletes

COACHING AND CARE OF ATHLETES into the final had cleared I2 ft. st ins., except my son and the Americans Meadows, Sefton, and Graber. These four went on to tackle the qualifying height of I 2 ft. St ins., and all cleared it successfully. I cannot account for what happened afterwards, but I do know that Dick was left in the stadium with no lunch and no massage to wait until4 P.M. for the final, which was contested between sixteen athletes from various nations. It was still raining and bitterly cold, but Dick elected to miss out the opening height of I 2 ft. and com– mence at I2 ft. 3! ins. (3·75 metres). He cleared this height, and then I2 ft. 7t ins. (3·85 metres), and I3 ft. It ins. (4 metres), negotiating each height successfully at the first time of asking, thus tying for sixth place in the Olympic final, besides clearing a greater height than he or any other British athlete had ever done before. At I3 ft. 7t ins. (4· IS metres) he took the bar off with his chest in the first vault, was well clear at the second attempt, but took the bar with his arm, and at the third vault, when he looked to be almost a foot clear, dropped his knee and removed the bar with that. By this time, with the rain still falling, it was so late that the vaulting had to be continued by floodlight. I thJnk this little story shows how a coach and the athlete he is training should work in concert, and certainly we had our reward for our close co-operation and the training we had planned– together. May I make just one more point about the peak performance? My son really had reached a most excellent peak, for which we had deliberately worked up, when at Berlin he cleared I3 ft. It ins. and so narrowly failed at I3 ft. 7t ins., but the relapse came afterwards, for in the match between the British Empire and the United States, which took place at the White City Stadium, London, on August IS, he had to be content with I2 ft. -6 ins. as his best vault, although it is only fair to say that at his first attempt at I 3 ft. the pole he was using broke, and again he took a very nasty toss. He was so badly winded, in fact, that although he made two further attempts at I3 ft., and they were good vaults, he did not clear that height. Actually he had to wait nearly a year, until he went to America with the Oxford and Cambridge team in I937, before he again achieved the I3 ft. height, which he then did on two occasions in succession, thus stabilizing a new peak performance, or at least equalling the old one. I04