Success in Athletics and how to obtain it

CHAPTER II SPRINTING ENGLISHMEN are slow to overcome their constant fault of trying to "muddle through" to victory in sport or battle. Once, however, the Englishman realises that there is something more in his branches of sport than " brute force and ignorance," there is no one more fastidious about the niceties of detail in matters scientific connected with his recreations. In these days of progress and ambition every game under the sun, from ping-pong to the sport of kings, has ceased to be a game as games used to be under– stood in the days of our straight-riding, hard-swearing ancestors. Then brain, muscle, and dogged deter– mination carried a man or a team to victory more · often than not, but nowadays this is not so, ·for within reasonable limits the small but scientific man will often prove superior to his more muscular but less scientific brother. Particularly is this the case in athletics: we refer to such sports as weight throwing, jumping, and foot racing. In this branch of sport every event has been reduced to an exact science. It cannot be said that the old maxim that " A good big 'un will always beat a good little 'un" does not still hold good, but what 14