Coaching and Care of Athletes

RELAY RACING available makes the lead position extremely advantageous, it is obviously good policy to use your fastest man for the first leg. Other determining circumstances may be the lane in which your team is to run or the order in which you learn that the most dangerous opposing team is going to run its men. There is, indeed, a good deal of strategy in connection with relay racing. Matters to be considered in deciding a general policy for the normal order in which the men will run in relay races must be governed to a large extent by the known ability of the men composing the team. Some few men run distinctly better in relay contests than in individual races. To cite but one example, in I930 G. L. Rampling, of the Royal Artillery (Plate XIX, Fig. 54), won the Army 440 yds. championship in 50 secs., the 440 yds. for the A.A.A. versus O.V.A.C. in 48·8 secs., and the 440 yds. for the A.A.A. versus C.U.A.C. in 49'4 secs. In the same year, when representing Great Britain in the relay and team match against Germany, Rampling ran his 400 metres leg of the medley relay in 47 secs. flat. Less than an hour later he ran the last leg of the 4 X 400 metres relay. Metzner got away on the final stage with an 8 yds. lead, and was still 6 yds. ahead enter– ing the home stretch. 50 yds. from the tape the German still led by 4 yds., but Rampling, running gloriously, was first past the post, to give Great Britain a one-fifth of a second victory. Ramp– ling's time for that epic 400 metres (437! yds.) was 46·6 secs. In individual races Rampling's best performances were his 440 yds. Army record of 48 secs. in 1934 and his British and British Empire Games records of 48 secs., made in the same year. To emphasize further my point let me refer to the 1936 Olympic Games. Rampling's time was 47· 5 secs. in the individual4oo metres semi-final, and he was eliminated. In the final of the 4 X 400 metres relay Rampling, when he took over the baton, was I 5 or I 6 yds. behind Edwards, of Canada, some Io yds. behind Young, U.S.A., and 5 or 6 yds. behind von Stuelpnagel, ofGermany; none the less he turned what looked like certain defeat into glorious victory by running the next 400 metres in 46·7 secs., to give W. Roberts a 4 yds. lead on the take-over. Roberts, incidentally, returned 46·4 secs., which, allowing for the flying start, corresponds closely with the time of 46·8 secs. which he returned for fourth ·place in the 400 metres individual Olympic final. Here you have two distinct types-Rampling, who returns better times in relay races, and Roberts, whose ability remains 271