Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics the hammer, of Beck and Sheldon of Yale and of many other less remarkable college heavyweights of recent years, quite take their place beside all but the most extraordinary feats of the club athletes. George R. Gray, who first came into athletic prominence in 1887, when he won the shot event at the national championships, has the most remarkable record for consistent high-class per– formances of any shot-putter that has yet appeared either here or abroad. For eight years in suc– cession Gray won the shot event at the national championships. He won again in 1896 after a lapse of one year, and in 1892, fifteen years after his first appearance, he won again in the same event. Gray was not a large man, and in his ordinary clothes he would never have been taken for a weight-throwing champion; but he made up in skill and steam what he lacked in size, and he was extremely well put together. His records were made not only in throwing the regulation sixteen-pound shot, but in the twelve, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-one, and twenty-four pound shot as well. His old world's record of 47 feet for the sixteen-pound shot was made at Chicago, on September 16, 1893. Until the appearance of Rose this record held for America, although it was surpassed in Ireland by D. Horgan, the Irish champion, with his put of 48 feet 2 inches. At Mott Haven the shot was first put over 40