Track Athletics in Detail (extract)

THE SPRINTS 5 nowadays to run with their mouths open, and every first-class man in the event does so. It must be plain to every one that a man can get more air into his lungs, and thus facilitate the working of the heart, by inhaling through his mouth than through his nostrils. Of late all the best long-distance runners have adopted this breathing method, and find it the best. The training for the 100 yards and that for the 220 are almost identical, for an athlete who runs one of these events almost invariably becomes proficient in the other. In fact, the 220 is a long sprint—the word sprint meaning to run at full speed the entire distance of a race. The most important feature of sprinting, of course, is the start, and no runner can become too proficient in this. Up to within five or six years the standing start was universal, but in 1889 or 1890 Lee, of the New York Athletic Club, introduced the crouching start, and since then that has become the standard in America. In England some of the professionals used it, but not until the London Athletic Club men came over here in 1895 did British amateurs recognize the value of the crouch and adopt it. But they did adopt it after the international games, and no doubt the crouching start will soon become general among English amateurs. The position for the start is somewhat difficult to acquire and master, but once this is accom-