Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

All-Round Individual Championship 393 A percentage system of counting was therefore substituted for the system of counting by points. By this scheme the world's amateur record in each event is made the maximum performance, and any contestant who can equal that record is given one thousand points. The standard of minimum performances was then lowered so far that it would include all performances of which any candidate for all-round athletic honors could unblushingly be wil1ing to be guilty. The three– failures-disqualifying rule was done away with, and by a carefully devised system of scoring each contestant was to receive proportionate credit for his performances, whatever they might be, provided that they did not go below the minimum standard. This minimum standard is as follows: one-hundred-yard dash, 14J seconds; one-mile run, 7 minutes 38 seconds; half-mile walk, 6 minutes 2 3 seconds; one-hundred-twenty– yard hurdles, 22-g- seconds; running high jump, 3 feet 9 inches; running broad jump, I 3 feet 1 inch; pole-vault, 6 feet 6 inches; sixteen-pound shot, 26 feet 2 inches; sixteen-pound hammer, 6 I feet; fifty-six-pound weight, I 5 feet. The present system of counting is a great improve– ment on the old system of scoring by points, but it still, and perhaps inevitably, leaves something to be desired. The point at which a man ceases to be merely an ordinary duffer citizen with two