Coaching and Care of Athletes

THE HALF-MILE AND Boo METRES The definite 88o-mi.le type of half-miler is represented by such Olympic champions as J. D. Lightbody, U .S.A., and his fellow– American M. W. Sheppard, together with the Englishman A. G. Hill. In yet another interesting category we find the type ofhalf-miler who has descended to that distance from much longer runs. For example, E. H. Flack, of Australia and Great Britain, who in I8g6 won the Olympic 8oo and I500 metres titles, might also have won the Marathon race had he not set too hot a pace and been unable to finish the course when comparatively close to home. Paavo Nurmi, the wonderful Finnish distance runner, was certainly of the same family, and I well remember, at Paris in I924, how annoyed Nurmi was at not being allowed to run in tJ:le 8oo metres, in which he was quite confident that he could have beaten D. G. A. Lowe, the representative of Great Britain (Plate XIV, Fig. 43), who won in the new Olympic record time of I min. 52·4 secs : Personally, I think Nurmi flattered himself in this connection. Either here 'or in the next chapter Nurmi must certainly be men– tioned, and it might as well be done now as later on. This phenomenal Finn, taking part in the Olympic Games for the first time in , I920, although beaten into second place at' 5000 metres , by the Frenchman J. Guillemot, won the Io,ooo metres cross-country and also the ro,ooo metres track race. Four years later at Paris Nurmi literally astounded the athletic world by winning the I500 and 5000 metres races, and running second in the Io,ooo metres and first in the 3000 metres team race and the Io,ooo metres cross-country race, to say nothing of com– peting also in the 3000 metres steeplechase. Since the 8oo metres or 88o yds. race nowadays requires both speed and stamina, Douglas Lowe falls into the most interesting category of all, and may have been the forerunner of a type of athlete who will make possible even more staggering records. Among his equals may be numbered the Canadian negro Phil Edwards and Dr Otto Peltzer, of Germany, of those no longer competing, and the American negro John Woodruff of the present generation. All these men were capable of creditable champion– ship performances at 440 yds., 88o yds., and I mile. Lowe won the half-mile and mile for Cambridge against Oxford and the English Championship at the 440 and 88o yds. distances, besides taking two Olympic 8oo metres titles, both in Olympic record time, and establishing a world's record at 6oo yds. Peltzer was world's 2'27