ATHLETIC RECORDS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 25, 30 January 1930, Page 20

ATHLETIC RECORDS

ANCIENT AND MODERN

ASTONISHING PERFORMANCES

Record-breaking is often carried to ludicrous lengths nowadays by enthusiasts who dance for days, or nit on the tops of poles for weeks; but a true feat of athletics is not a, thing to be scoffed at. Nowadays, when everybody likes to ride rather than walk, it is nice to be reminded that the human body is still capable of going fast and far unaided. If a few zealous athletes were not still willing to perform what cynics call "idiotic feats," we should be in danger of being put to shame by our ancestors. . ■■•' v

A man who rides to town every day in a tramcar, and whose most strenuous sport is a gome of bridge at home in the evening, is apt to be ignorant of what Shanks's pony can do when really put to it.

THE GREEKS.

We need to cultivate a little of the enthusiasm of the anoicnt Greek^ for physical agility and endurance. No one ,ever called.a classical Greek athlete a fool for risking the rupture of his blood vessels in a punishing trial of speed or stamina. Among the ' Greek national heroes, Lasthenes the Theban stood' high, for ho could run a horse to a standstill. There were also Polymnestor, who chased and caught a hare, and Philonules, the courier of- Alexander the Great, who once ran 150 miles in nine hours!

Everyone knows what a Marathon race1 is. The word itself wo owe to the famous soldier of Marathon who ran 26 miles to announce a victory to the Magistrates. of Athons. and fell dead at .their feet What his time was we da ndt know. It natters our vanity to think he did not improve on the time of the present record-holder — two hours and thirty-four minutes.

THE MODERN ATHLETE.

The indications are that the modern, athlete -would hold his own against any who ever, lived. Take the case of the Indian long-distance runner, "Deerfoot," who was. taken to England in 1861 and there defeated all the champions. In London, he covered eleven miles in 58 minutes and 52 seconds, and established a world's record which stood for many years. But the present world's record over ten miles, made by Shrubb, in Glasgow, in 1904, if 50 minutes and_4o seconds—quite as good—-and official. Many, of the oldest records are open to suspicion. Some truly wonderful stories are told of the achievements of the foot couriers in the ages which went before the electric telegraph and wireless. The runners retained by the English nobility must have been tough fellows. One is credited with having run to London and back, a round trip of 148 miles, and to have returned within 24 hours, with an urgently needed bottle of physic. ...'.. ■

THE LAZY COURIER.

There in a story of a Scottish laird who live 35 miles from Edinburgh, and who dispatched a courier one night with a letter for someone in the city. On the following morning, he found his messenger asleep in an antechamber, and, like a true Scottish chief, was on th« point of dirking him for a shirker, when the man awoke, and handed him a reply to his letter. The courier had covered 70 miles while his master slept. The Taurj-Mauri Indians, of Mexico, are described as the most wonderful long-distance runners in the world. One, a mail carrier over "50 miles of as rough mountainous road as ever tried a mountaineer's lungs and limbs," used to.caver this 50-mile stage^ every day, carrying on his back a mail-pack weighing 401b. It is on. record that a regular Hindustanoe carrier, loaded with a weight of 801b, will lope along over 100 miles in 24 hours, as astonishing a performance, in its way, as the 100 miles credited to Charles Bowell, the American runner, in less than 13 hours and a half.

1500 MILES IN 1000 HOURS,

Then there is William Gale, who walked 1500 miles in a thousand consecutive hours, and afterwards walked 00 miles every 24 hours for six weeks on a cinder path. He was 49 years old at the time of his extraordinary feat, a little man without mueli muscular development. In six weeks of walking he lost only 71b in weight. John Snyder, of Dunkirk, was even more of a marvel. He is said to have walked 25,000 miles in 500 days, and to have finished as fresh as paint. Ernost Mensen, the Norwegian sailor, made a wager that he would walk from Paris to Moscow m 15 days—lsso miles. He won the wager in 1834 with six hours to spare! In 1836 he was employed by the East India Company to carry a dispatch from Calcutta to. Constantinople, a distance of 5580 miles across Central' Asia. He aid the journey in 59 days—in one-third less time than the fastest caravan. This wonderful walker died whilst trying to discover the source of the Nile.