Why? The Science of Athletics

HUMAN MECHANISM 57 the C.I.E. Conference, while R. F. Kerslake was manager of the British Universities team, to which I was acting as Honorary Chief Coach. On August 7th, J. G.' Helps, Birmingham, who was captain of the British Universities team, and J. M. Ross, Edinburgh, both came successfully through the eliminating heats of the I soo metres. Lowe made no remark, beyond congratulating the British runners upon their success. On Friday evening, however, he came round to the Marienhoe, where we were living, and the five of us settled down r"ound a table in a corner of the dining-room. Then Lowe, in his own inimitably quiet fashion, gave a summing-up of the way the ISOO metres heats had been run. This was followed by a masterly piece of deductive reasoning as to the capabilities of the various runners who would be concerned in the final next day. Then came Lowe's considered opinion as to how the race would be run, just what times would be returned for each lap and who would be leading at various stages, if the foreigners were allowed to dictate the strategy. Working from that data, backed up by our knowledge of just what Helps and Ross could do, Lowe proceeded to outline the way the race ought to be run, if Helps was going to win it. Ross, incidentally, was to be offered up as a very game sacrifice ; he was .also to act as buffer-state in what we anticipated would be a race not free from bumping and boring. Among the finalists were· Krause, the German cham– pion, with Surjatta and another German to cover him, and the international middle-distance runners Cerati, Italy; Le Due, France; Dahlstrom, Sweden; and Johanssen, Norway; while neither Helps nor Ross had yet been chosen for England or Scotland. Saturday afternoon came, and not only were Lowe's predictions fulfilled to the very letter, but the race was run just exactly as he had planned it for the benefit of the Britishers. Directly the race was on, Ross piloted