Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics Several of these hurdlers were famous athletes in their time- Bremer held the world's record-but all of them were so decidedly surpassed by the champion, Kranzlein, that that phenomenal jack– rabbit stands in a class by himself. Kranzlein won both the high and the low hurdles at Mott Haven in 1898, 1899, and 1900; he won the national cham– pionship in low hurdles in 1897, 1898,and 1899, and in the high hurdles in 1898 and 1899. His record of 1st seconds, made at Chicago; June 18, 1898, broke all previous world's records for the high hurdles, and the same was true of his record of 23f seconds for the low hurdles made at Mott Haven in 1898. Kranzlein won the English championship in the one-hundred-twenty-yard hurdle in 1sf seconds in 1900, and in 1sf seconds in 1901. These times, which were made on grass in accordance with the English custom, each sur– passed all previous English records, although Fox of Harvard did 1sf in the high hurdles at the Harvard-Yale-Qxford-Cambridge games in 1899. No one who ever saw Kranzlein run could fail to be impressed by his superabundant lithe– ness and "spring." He was tall and very slim, with slender legs, and not an ounce of super– fluous weight on him. His style was ultra-typical of latter-day hurdling form. He apparently took very little notice of the hurdles - simply stepping over them, so to speak, as they came. There was