The Fourth Olympiad London 1908 (extracts)

1896, at Athens, the race was one of 24 miles, 1,500 yards, and was won by a Greek in 2 hr. 55 min. 20 sec. In 1900, in Paris, the race (25 miles) w.1s won by a Frenchman in 2 hr. 59 min. 45 ec. At .'t. Louis, in 1904, the distance wa again 24 miles, 1,500 yards, and an American won in 3 hr. 28 min. 5.1 sec. At Athen , in 1906, the distance was 26 miles, which has remained the standard, and the race was won by herring, the Canadian, in less than 2 hr. 52 min., when he finished perfectly fresh ; and in no previous race of the kind are any examples of extreme exhaustion on record. Yet in England, considered to be the home of the long-distance runner, our best man took more than 3± hours to g .t home. Probably much may be explained by the fact that July 24 was the hottest day on which a race of over 26 miles was ever attempted in this country; and it is certainly remarkable that Beale, who fini hed eighteenth in 3 hr. 26 min. 26 sec., should have run 22 miles, 1 1 420 yards, in 2 hr. 17 min. at the end of _\µril, in the worst possible weather, and was beaten by uncan, who did not get within the fir t twenty-seven at the tadium. Price, too, the Englishman who led at halfway on July 24, but was unable to fini h, had done th fine time of 2 hr. 37 min. 13 sec. in the trial over 25 miles in Iay, which is les than 5 min. slower than the be t professional track record for the distance. Dorando's time in March, 1909, was 2 hr. 48 min. 8 sec. for 26 miles on an indoor track ten laps to the mile. He was then a profes– sional, and it took another profes ional to beat that time in the open air in England. Neither, it will be noticed, was an Engli ·hman. . herring was within five minutes of the amateur tra k record for 26 miles at Athens, and I should therefore be inclined to ·ay that the hot and stifling nature of the day had a great deal to do with the r sult of the English l\farathon Rae , especially in vie:w of the fact that a Frenchman, doing the . ame course in England in O tober, finished in the tadium, quite fresh, in 2 hr. 37 min. 23 sec., or over half an hour better than our best Englishman in July and 14 min. better than herring at Athens. Nationality, taken in onjunction with the exceptional weather, has been suggested as a factor in the result·. But if we analy the first twenty– seven to finish in the Stadium in 1908, and if ~ve take it that, owing to being u ed to warmer weather, the United tates provided the winner, the third, the fourth, the ninth, and the fourteenth, or five in all out of their twelve entries; e\·en if we give outh Africa the credit of being represented in these twenty-seven by the second man, out of her entry of five, we are still faced with the fact that anada provided the fifth, sixth, seventh, eleventh, sixteenth, twenty-second, twenty-fourth, and twenty-seventh, or a record of eight out of her twelve entries, a splendid achi vemcnt and worthy FZ