Читать книгу Handbook of Summer Athletic Sports - Various - Страница 2

The success of Weston and O'Leary in their long-distance walks in England surprised the Britons greatly. Up to the time of Weston's appearance in that country, Englishmen had been accustomed to consider themselves the best walkers in the world; but the two Americans – the native and the naturalized – soon took the conceit out of them. The best English long-distance walkers were Peter Crossland and Henry Vaughan, who had both done excellent work in matches of the kind then practiced in England. But the introduction of six-day contests, first started by Weston, put these professionals on unfamiliar ground, and they found that a man who could walk a hundred miles in one day was not able to cope with these American wonders, who could finish five hundred miles in six days. The Englishmen laid their defeat to the right cause – unfamiliar methods; and Sir John Astley, a rich sporting baronet, to put both parties on an equality, introduced the six-day "go-as-you-please" match, soon to supersede all others. It was thought that runners would have the advantage over walkers in this match. Their backers claimed that by going over the ground faster they would gain more time for rest, and so in the end go further. The first Astley Belt match falsified all their data. In the famous contest at Agricultural Hall, London, from March 18th to March 23d, 1878, Daniel O'Leary covered 520 1-4 miles, in 139 hours 6 minutes 10 seconds, confining himself to walking after the first fifty miles. He had against him the great English long-distance runners and the best long-distance walker, Vaughan, all of whom he defeated decisively. Vaughan stopped at 500 miles – a score he has never since equaled – "Blower" Brown retired at 477, and "Corkey," who had things all his own way for the first three days, broke down utterly on the fourth; while Hazael and Rowell were earlier satisfied that they had no chance.

In the same year O'Leary defeated with ease John Hughes and Peter Napoleon Campana, surnamed "Sport," both runners, and seemed to be secure of holding the Astley belt for life. Indeed, had he not, like most sporting men, been deceived by the exaggerated reports of Campana's prowess, he might be champion to-day.

The reason for this statement is simple. Campana's Bridgeport record, as it turned out from after investigation, was a deliberate fraud, got up by some low sporting men, who probably did not at first dare to hope for the success which it attained. They began by running their man on a short track, and when that fraud was discovered made a merit of having the course publicly remeasured by the city surveyor. The more important part of the fraud was not discovered till after "Sport's" ignominious defeat by O'Leary, and then only by the confession of his Bridgeport scorers and time-keepers. It turned out that they had been crediting him with laps never run, and that they had employed men to personate him, late at nights, when he was really asleep, these men running for him. By means of these fraudulent representations they rolled up such a score for Campana that he was credited with 521 miles in a six-day match.

O'Leary, who, besides his Hughes match, had been giving several 400-mile walks, knew that he was no longer in condition to walk against a good man for the championship, and therefore made the match one for money alone. Had he allowed the belt to be in the stakes there is no doubt that he would have won it for the third and last time, when he would have become its absolute possessor.

In the meantime, however, the runners in England had been improving their style immensely, for in the second Astley match, beginning Oct. 28th, and closing Nov. 2d, 1878, William Gentleman, (alias "Corkey,") made 520 2-7 miles in 137 hours, 58 min., 20 sec.; thus beating O'Leary's distance by a trifle, and his time by more than an hour. This match it was that raised the spirits of Sir John Astley, and induced him to send over Rowell (who made 470 miles in the same match) to beat O'Leary. Sir John knew what he was about, and had kept O'Leary in view all the year.

The scores of the American champion's matches with Hughes and Campana, showed that the man was failing, and if so, Rowell was good enough to beat him, as there was no other really formidable walker in America; so Astley judged, and correctly, too.

The victory of Rowell over the American walkers caused an instantaneous revulsion of public sentiment in favor of runners, a revulsion artfully increased by O'Leary's widely-published dictum that the runners were always "bound to beat the walkers." This, however, was not by any means proven at that time. The real truth was that champagne, not Rowell, beat O'Leary; and Rowell's record in the race was twenty miles short of the champion's best walking record. The other competitors in the match were simply not first-class men.

The cause of the runners has, however, received a fresh impetus since Rowell's victory by the still more remarkable feat of "Blower" Brown (always a "good man") who in the third Astley belt match, April 22d-27th, 1879, made the amazing distance of 542 miles in 140 hours.

Finally the veteran Weston beat even Brown's record by the superlative score of 550 miles over the same track, opposed to Brown himself and Hazael.

Since that time Brown has made 553 miles over the same track, and a negro lawyer from Boston named Hart has made 565 miles in Madison Square Garden, finishing April 10, 1880.

As the record now stands, in contests where almost super-human endurance and speed are required, ordinary runners may win, but only at the expense of a waste of physical energy that a scientific walker does not suffer. They go faster and manage to live through the contest, but that is all. The introduction of "go-as-you-please" contests, has, however, given rise to a new style of long-distance running, which is as strictly scientific as professional walking, and to these two branches of pedestrianism let us now devote our attention.