Coaching and Care of Athletes

,• THE QUARTER-MILE AND 400 .METRES and 59·4 secs. Wooderson's lap times add up to 4 mins. 6·6 secs., but the record was subsequently approved as 4 mins. 6·4 secs. In 1938 Glenn Cunningham, U.S.A., running on an indoor track of6i laps to the mile, returned 4 mins. 4·4 secs., his 440 yds. times being 58·5, 64, 6r·7, and 6o·2 secs. · Proof that no one yet knows what man is capable of in reducing distance running to sprinting, nor over which range of distances a man can maintain championship form, is evidenced by the success of various athletes. The seventies of the nineteenth century produced in Lon Myers, U.S.A., an amazing young athlete, whose mother had died of tuberculosis. He was destined to go down in history as the greatest short-distance runner of all time. This boy, born at Richmond, Virginia, U .S.A., on February r6, r858, first appeared in open competition in America in November r878. He was just a lightly built running machine, with a slender body and very long legs. He stood 5 ft. 8 ins. in height, and weighed less than 8 stone. His ambition was to break every American record from roo-yds. to a mile, and this he did. He won innumerable champion– ships, both in America and England, and in the course of his astounding career created twenty-two amateur records, from 50 yds. in 5! secs. to r mile in 4 mins. 27·6 secs. These records in– cluded hurdle races at 220 yds. and 440 yds. Two other versatile runners who should be mentioned are Henry Stallard, Cambridge University and Great Britain, and the West Indian runner H. F. V. Edward, who also represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games. Stallard won English Championship titles at r mile in 4 mins. !U ·6 secs. in 1923, 88o yds. in r min. 54·6 secs. in 1924, and 440 yds. in 50 secs. in 1925. Edward's performances were even more surprising, for in the space of the afternoon of the English Championships in 1922 he won the roo yds. in ro secs., the 220 yds. in 22 secs., and the 440 yds. in 52 secs. He also repre– sented the Polytechnic Harriers, who were second, in the medley relay. With heats and finals, he ran eight or nine races on Friday and Saturday, five or six of which were on the Saturday afternoon. THE QUARTER-MILE Let us, before going into the technique and tactics of quarter– roiling, consider some of the men, other than those already 207