Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics height, and he weighed one hundred seventy pounds - proof that in order to jump one does not need to be a gazelle. A number of club athletes of the early nineties were good for 6 feet and over, but the greatest of them, and the only one to break Page's record, was Sweeney. Sweeney got into the game by winning at the national championships in 1892 with a jump of 6 feet. He defended his title successfully for three con– secutive years, and in 1895, with a jump of 6 feet sf inches, he broke all previous records both in this country and abroad. Sweeney already held a world's record with his 6 feet 5 inches made at the trials for selecting the men to represent the New York Athletic Club team against the Oxford-Cambridge team, and on the day of the international games, September 21, 1895, after every one had dropped out, Sweeney was sent against his own record. There seemed to be something in the air that day which made almost every member of the American team surpass himself. After two trials in which he grazed the bar, Sweeney cleared it cleanly at 6 feet sf inches. The measurement was made by both the English and American judges and its authenticity put beyond question. Since Sweeney's time a number of jumpers have appeared who could do over 6 feet with considerable consistency, and compared with