Coaching and Care of Athletes

·coACHING AND CARE OF ATHLETES the day he made his world's record he carried the high jump standards on to the ground and walked around with them until he found a jumping-pitch to his liking. There were still no sand-pits for the jumper to land in. Sweeney's theory was that maximum heights could be cleared only by an athlete's transferring his body from a vertical to a horizontal position at the instant of clearing the bar, or, as ·we say nowadays, by getting all the heavy parts of the body down to the level of the centre of gravity. This theory postulated perfect body control and the very essence of accurate timing. He took off from his left foot, and approached the jump from directly in front with light, springy steps. In taking off he faced the bar squarely, and threw his right foot straight up, with the left leg swinging up quickly. The _upward swing of the right leg turned him a quarter on to his left side. The left leg, swinging up and out, turned the body fully on to the left side, and the left leg and hip were jerked up, while the head and shoulders were dropped to the left to com– plete the lay-out. Continuing the natural rotation, the body turn€d face downward, the left leg was carried back across the bar, and the left foot dropped to catch the body on landing, as the arms were thrown up and the head bent back to draw the jumper's chest away from the bar. Sweeney's record stood for seventeen years, but in I9I2 George Horine, of Stanford University, U.S.A., jumped 6ft. 7 ins. in an entirely new style. The stories of how Alfred Shrubb realized his athletic prowess after running to see a burning haystack and hovy Horine discovered the Western Roll style of high jumping through the fortuitous circumstance of the lay-out of a training-ground precluding his approach to the jump from his accustomed angle have been related so frequently that I dare not retail them yet again. In I 9 I o Horine, standing 5 ft. I I ins. and weighing 9! stone, was capable of clearing no more than 5 ft. I in. in the natural 'Scissors' style. In I9I2, by which time he weighed nt stone and had discovered his new method, he took the world's record up to 6ft. 6! ins. at Stanford, California, on March 29. On May I8 he increased this record to 6 ft. 7 ins. Hitherto men who did not approach the bar from directly in front had run from the right if the take-off was to be made from the left foot and from the left if they sprang from the right foot. In other words, all high jumpers up to that time had made the spring 34:2