KEANE DISCUSSES 220 MARK

Few athletic records can point to a successful repulse of all assaults over a stretch of years that extends back to the nineteenth century. Yet that is the case with the 220 yard dash at the I. C. A. A. A. A. championships, for the present mark of 21 1-5 seconds was made in 1896 by B. J. Wefers of Georgetown. Only two men, R. C. Craig of Michigan, and D. F. Lippincott of the University of Pennsylvania, have succeeded in equalling this record in the 28 meets which have been held since Wefers broke the best previous mark by three fifths of a second.

In a sense, it is not difficult to account for the long-standing mark, because this is the day of specialists, and the furlong sprint is an "in between" event. Two hundred and twenty yards is an intermediate distance. If a coach has a real sprinter he usually counts upon him to win both the 100 and 220. As a rule, however, the runner seems to specialize in the "100" and takes a chance, as it were, that his training will carry him through the longer of his sprints "on his natural" as track men say.

Forty-Ninth 220 Race

This same theory applies to a good quarter-miler. With a bit of speed work towards the end of training, the coach invariably finds his man able to give a good account of himself. Both Allen Woodring and Charles Reidpath won I. C. A. A. A. A. 220 titles while concentrating on preparations for the quartermile.

On May 28 and 29 the Harvard Stadium, when the I. C. A. A. A. A. celebrates its golden anniversary, the 220 yard event will be held for the forty-ninth time. The event was held for the first time in 1877, one year after the title meet was inaugurated. It will be interesting to observe whether a span of thirty years will pass without witnessing the lowering of the "220" record. Frankly, such a development would not surprise me.

Captain Henry Russell of Cornell will enter this year's meet as the defending champion, and naturally will be rated as a likely repeater after the form he showed in the indoor 70 yard championship. Russell was two-tenths of a second away from Wefer's record last year, but so were Bill Schick of Harvard in 1904 and Reidpath in 1912 and Woodring in 1921.