Why? The Science of Athletics

ELIMINATION OF HUMAN ERROR momentum of their forward body movement and get right into action, thus to some extent eliminating time-lag, but it is not a type of starting that can be employed with amateurs. None the less, accurate starting and the accurate timing of runners are very important factors in the scientific study of athletics, and various experiments have been carried ·out and specialized apparatus produced to that end. One of the most ingenious pieces of mechanism I have yet seen is the Cantabrian Starting Gate, invented by Mr.. Harry Rottenburg, of Cambridge University. (See Plate 3, Figs. I8 and I8a.) This gate is fitted with a light tape which the athlete goes through when he starts, and this tape is attached to a drum marked off in inches, which shows the amount of pull the runner placed upon the tape, and _hence whether his start was a fair one, and if not, the extent to which he beat the pistol or anticipated the arrival of his partner in a shuttle-relay. As regards timing for competitive pur- Timing poses. It ha{ become the desire of all people who are interested in athletics that an invariable quantity such as time should be established for the classification of performances throughout the world during all eras, but when nothing more than a stop-watch actuated by an individual, or even three individuals using synchronized and Greenwich-tested watches, is employed, such quantity is bound to become variable. In the first place, the timekeepers for a sprint race stand at the finish of the race, and the starter, by the flash of whose gun they start their watches, stands at the other end, some I oo to I 20 yards distant from the finish. The timekeepers then stop their watches as the winner of the race crosses the finishing line. If all the watches used agree it still means nothing more than that the individuals holding them have been subject to the same degree of human error, since the system in question contains the