Why? The Science of Athletics

- I 78 WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS Again Meade: "The rate for 6oo and 1000 yards and ! mile are also a second or two slower than they should be." And again his prognostication was correct, for since then those records have been reduced resRectively ·4 of a second, I sec., and 2 secs. He predicted, further, that the 3-miles– record would come down 3 secs., and that for 5 miles, 20 secs. The one has since been reduced by 5·4 secs. and the other by I 4· 2 secs. I said, however, that the considerations already given did not make up the whole story. Now we shall see why I made that suggestion. In the first place, there is Professor Hill's own state– ment that :.!it is doubtful, however, how far the simple relation described by Kennelly really represents the physio– logical facts" ; and again, we have seen that Meade, when making his predictions in I 926, apparently placed the limit of record breaking, based on the then existing record, -at 3 mins. 51 secs. for I500 metres, his prediction being fulfilled by Peltzer in the following year. But in I930 Ladoumegue brought the :6gure down to 3 mins. 49.2 secs., in I932 Luigi Beccali ran the distance first in 3-49.2 and then 3-49, while in I934 W. R. Bonthron; U.S.A., r.eturned 3-48.8 secs. These records carry the I500 metres and mile runners right be_yond the range of predictions based upon the analytical studies of the relationship between the various running events, but they do not go beyond prognosti– cations based upon the building up of the new Finnish Points Scoring Table, according to which, since Glenn Hardin had run 400 metres over hurdles in 50.6 secs., it should be possible for another athlete to run r 500 metres on the flat in 3 mins. 44-8 secs. My own opinion is that the figures foretold by calcu– lations based upon the Finnish table are the more likely to be fulfilled, for although Mr. Meade believes that the advance in record breaking will be slower in the next 30 years than in the last 30, the fact must not be overlooked that he p<:>stulates that modern record breaking has been