Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

CHAPTER XII COMPETITIVE WALKING ExcEPT as contested by the all-round athletes at their annual individual championships, walking no longer occupies a serious place in the considera– tion of track athletes. The one-mile walk was dropped from the Mott Haven programme after the games of 1898, and the one-mile, three-mile, and seven-mile walk, which were contested at the national amateur championships at various times, are now no longer seen. The half-mile walk, at which the all-round athletes still compete, is retained because there could be no just standard of comparison between present and past individual all-round champions if the programme of events should be changed. .tEsthetically or athletically little good can be said of walking as a competitive sport. Natural as walking is, and graceful and beneficial as it may be made, there is nothing either pleasing or normally helpful in walking as it is done on the track. The contorted wabbling of the heel-and– toe walker is the acme of athletic awkwardness, and although long-distance competitive walking 398