Coaching and Care of Athletes

CHAPTER XV SPRINTING IT has often been said that any fool can run. This is true, up to a point, because running is a perfectly natural action. Running athletically, however, is quite another matter, and it has been stated by good authorities that the running of a 100 yds. sprint race .requires almost as exact a technique as that employed by any of the field-events men. Sprinting is usually regarded as the generic term for all races up to goo yds. One is almost tempted, however, to include the 400 metres and 440 yds. races in the sprints nowa– days, since these distances are run in first-class competition as races of exhaustion, in which the athlete goes flat out from the "" crack of the pistol until he breasts the worsted stretched between the winning-posts. None the less I shall deal with the 400 metres and 440 yds. as separate events in this volume. There are, in sprinting, various permissible styles, which will be discussed in due course. The first of the great sprinters in modern history is believed to have been an American, George Seward, of Newhaven, Con– necticut, who came to England in 1846 and established some re– markable records. The greatest of all English sprinters, and possibly the greatest in the world, was the professional Harry Hutchens, who is still alive. The crouch start, which revolutionized sprinting, was invented by Michael Murphy, American chief Olympic ceach, and first practised in May 1888 by C. H. Sherrill, of Yale University, who won one American national and seven I.C.A.A.A.A. 1 sprint titles. The crouch start was not seen until two years later in England, when it was first employed by the amateur quarter-mile champion T. L. Nicholas, of Monmouth. By this time, in America, J. Owen, Junior, of Detroit, had reduced the American Ioo yds. champion– ship record to g·8 secs., a performance which was equalled in r8g6 by B. ]. Wefers, of Georgetown University. Wefers won the I.C.A.A.A.A. roo yds. in 1896 and 1897 (g·85 secs.) and the 220 yds. in 18g6 (21·25 secs.). He also won the A.A.U. 100 yds. in 1895, 18g6, and 1897, his best time being g:s secs. in 1897, and l Inter-Collegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America. 1 74