Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

CHAPTER X THE WEIGHTS AND WEIGHT-THROWERS THROWING the weights is a game for big men. It is not a sport in which the athlete of slender build, however wiry and active he may be, can successfully indulge. A big frame and plenty of beef are a necessity, and a good head of steam behind them. It takes your Flanagans and Mitchells, Plaws and Becks and Roses, to do this sort of work. Praxiteles must give way to Michael Angelo, and light-footed Mercury to broad-backed, colossal Hercules. What the weights lose in the thrill of swift grace and breathless competition they make up, to a certain extent, in the picture they give of statuesque strength and power. The mighty man who can send the sixteen-pound hammer hurling through the air for one hundred fifty feet is bound to be worth looking at, to have a big, smooth symmetry of development which is lacking in his leaner and more angular brothers of the track. There is a certain majesty in the swing of his great shoulders, in the pillar-like stability of his braced legs. Standing there alone 377