Olympic Cavalcade

20 OLYMPIC CAVALCADE This was Wulfin the Heron, who carried axe, bow and leaping pole, as was th~ fenman's habit. Hereward the Wake was also a noted pole jumper. After the coming of the Normans the simple sports of the country folk were replaced by the war-like practice of chivalry. But in the days of the Tudors the recreations of the English yeomen reappeared. Henry II (1154- u89) had open spaces set aside near London for the practice of athletics. Edward Ill (1327-1377), by statut~, prohibited shot-putting as being d~tri­ mental to archery; Henry V (1413-1422) was himself a fine runner and Henry VIII (1509-1547) viewed athletic sport with particular favour. He was, personally, good at hammer throwing, tossing the bar, jumping and pole vaulting. There-was also Achmat, the last Emperor of Turkey, who made one hammer throw so mighty that two great pillars of marble were set up in Stamboul: one to mark the spot from which he made his throw and the other to mark the spot where his hammer hit the ground. . In the days of Henry VIII and his daughter Queen Elizabeth, th~n, the yeomen of England were again amusing themselves in wrestling, bo]\ing, athletic events and in contests at single-sticks and quarter-staff. The light of athleticism died down during the Commonwealth, but waxed bright again in ·the days of Charles II, and ~ever has the prosperity of the British people been brighter than when the leisure of our people has been given up to healthy open-air exercises and games. In the days of Crecy and Agincourt every village througHout England had its butts for archery; at the time of the repulse of the Spanish Armada single-sticks and quarter– staff were in daily practice; the English fairs were at the zenith of their fame at the time of Dettingen, Ramill~s and Malplaquet, and the fame ofTrafalgar and Waterloo coincided with the fame of the English Prize Ring and the triumphs of the running footmen and the Corinthian pedestrians. Early in the nineteenth century the Greek athletic ideal was nearing a resurrection. The Oxford and Cambridge Sports were instituted in 1864; the first English Championships were held two years after; the Irish Amateur . Championships seven years later, but still two years before the first tests in America. The English A.A.A., which now control the sport, was founded in 188o, that of Scotland in 1883, and the Amateur Athletic Union of America in 1888. The oldest athletic club in the world is the London Athletic Club, which is senior to the New York Athletic Club, U.S.A., by nearly a qaart~rof a century.