Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

All-Round Individual Championship 391 but as a matter of hard fact, to perform creditably at this ambitious list of events, ranging all the way from the hundred-yard dash to throwing the fifty-six-pound weight, requires an athletic devel– opment which the ordinary man with ordinary training cannot hope to reach at all. It is not reasonable to believe that a man weighing less than one hundred and fifty pounds could do anything with the weight events, particularly with the fifty-six-pound weight, nor could the very heavy man hope to do much in the pole– vault or high hurdles. Whatever the type, there must not be a weak spot in the athlete's entire make-up, and it has been demonstrated that failure to score in any one of the ten events is almo t sure to prove fatal to a man's chances of wmnmg. The all-round candidate must contest in ten events. Except for the half-mile walk, an antique and rather anomalous event not retained in ordinary athletic programmes, the all-round events group themselves naturally into three classes, each testing respectively the athlete's speed, spring, and strength. These nine events are as follows: the one-hundred-yard dash, the one-hundred-twenty-yard hurdle, and the mile run; the running high jump, running broad jump, and pole-vault; the sixteen-pound shot, sixteen– pound hammer, and fifty-six-pound weight. Until 1893 the performance which the all-