Why? The Science of Athletics

2 16 WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS entrusted with the task of team building or the training of the individual athlete. Once this fundamental principle was envisaged sports instructors, and especially in America, were very quick to make the fullest use of the most rapid cameras available, for the purpose of augmenting and improving their knowledge of the particular physical skills that they were anxious to study and teach. This new method was satisfactory, up to a point, but it had its disadvantages. With the introduction of the camera, sport-pictures were produced in great quantities of athletes in action. Most of these snapshots were secured by Press photographers, and, of course, the pressman, to be worth his salt, must concentrate his attention upon securing a "picture", and the more startling or specta– cular that picture can be made to appear the better will be the camera-man's chance of getting it published. In these circumstances it was not long Misleading before camera-men discovered that more Photography spectacular . pictures could be obtained if _ the subject was taken from an unusual angle. The distortion that resulted destroyeC:l. the value of Press photographs from the scientific instructor's point of vi.ew. For example, the reader will easily see .for himself that Fig. 41, Plate ro, of a hurdle race between British and foreign athletes was taken with the camera held at the proper height to produce a just picture of the action of the hurdlers concerned, in that it does show the actual margin- by which each of six men is clearing the obstacle, whereas in the case of Fig. 44, Plate I r, which -depicts C. E. S. Gordon, the Oxford high jumper, achieving the height of 6ft. I in., the camera-man has crouched down, with his camera resting almost upon the ground, and in consequence of the angle at which the picture was taken the jumper appears to be clearing the bar by a margin of several inches, with his left foot at a higher level than his head, whereas Gordon's buttock just grazed the bar and his left foot never reached an elevation higher than