ATHLETIC SPORTS. Various sports were cultivated many hundreds of years before the Christian era by the Egyptians and several Asiatic races. The Irish, too, had a great festival known as the Lugnasad, or Tailtin games, which were celebrated several centuries B.C. From such ancient festivals as these the early Greeks undoubtedly adopted the elements of their athletic exer cises (see ATHLETE) which reached their highest development in the Olympic games and other periodical meetings of the time (see GAMES, CLASSICAL). After the Norman Conquest of Eng land the nobles devoted themselves to the chase and the joust, but the people also had their sports. In the main these were in the nature of preparations for war. The chroniclers of the middle ages are, for the most part, silent concerning the purely recrea tional pastimes. We are told, however, that Henry V. "was so swift a runner that he and two of his lords, without bow or other engine, would take a wild buck in a large park." Strutt (Sports and Pastimes of the People of England) chronicles the fact that young men of good family were taught to run, leap, wrestle and joust. Several ordinances of reigning sovereigns make it clear that the common people had their sports, but these, apparently, interfered with the practice of archery, and Edward III. pro hibited weight-putting by statute. The popularity of feats of strength prevailed, however, and we find, later, that "casting of the barre" was a popular pastime with Henry VIII., who had also a penchant for throwing the hammer. In the reign of this mon arch there appears to have been a great athletic revival. Opinion as to the value of athletics was sharply divided during the reign of Henry VIII. His secretary, Richard Pace, advised the sons of noblemen to practise sport and leave study and learning to the sons of meaner people. At about the same period Sir Thomas Elyot deprecated too much study and flogging for schoolboys and suggested that more satisfactory results might be obtained by a proper appreciation of athletic lore. On the other hand Roger Ascham, in his Toxophilus, declares that "running, leaping and quoiting be too vile for scholars." Up to the 16th century a great football match had been played annually at Chester, but in that century was abandoned in favour of a series of foot-races, which took place in the presence of the mayor. The Stuart kings were warm encouragers of sport, and James I. in the Basilikon Doron, written to his son, recommended all forms of manly exercise. During the Puritan rule and that of Charles II., however, ath letic sport all but died out in England, only to be revived with renewed vigour in the early part of the 19th century.
An extraordinary variety of sports has been popular in the British Isles with people of all classes for the past Soo years, but so far as history and legend record Ireland boasts by far the most ancient organized sports, the Tailteann Games, or Lugnasad, traditionally established by Lugaid of the long arm, one of the gods of Dia and Anna, in honour of his foster-mother, Tailti, some 3,00o years ago. Cuchulain, the mythical Irish hero, is said to have taken part. For many centuries these games and others like them were kept up in Ireland, and though almost constant wars which harried the country finally destroyed their organiza tion, yet the Irish were for many centuries a very important factor in British athletics, as well as in America and the British domin ions overseas. The Tailtin Games were successfully revived at Dublin in 1924, following upon the eighth Olympiad at Paris in the same year.
The Scottish people have, like the Irish, ever delighted in feats of strength and skill, especially the Celtic Highlanders. Unfor tunately many of the great Highland gatherings are still of a pro fessional nature, which has prevented the Scottish athlete from attaining the truly world-wide prominence to which his perform ances justly entitle him.
The Briton does not lose his love of sport upon leaving his native soil, and the development of athletics in the United States and the British dominions has, in many events, forged far ahead of that of the Motherland. Since the institution of the modern Olympic Games at Athens in 1896, national championship meet ings have been promoted annually on the Continent and through out Scandinavia. In recent years America, Finland, France, Ger many, Italy, Norway and Sweden have produced a number of extraordinary world's record-breakers.
The first regularly organized athletic meeting of modern times was that promoted by the Royal military academy, Woolwich, in 1849. A year later Exeter college, Oxford, inaugurated sports which have been continued annually down to the present day. The Exeter college meeting was undoubtedly the precursor of the Cambridge sports founded in 1857 and the Oxford sports which were first decided in 186o. The Oxford and Cambridge sports commenced in 1864 and the English championships in 1866.
In 1852 Kensington grammar school began to hold regular sports meetings, Harrow and Cheltenham and Durham university followed suit a year later, and from those days may be traced the growth of athletic sport in English schools which now has reached its climax in the public schools sports meeting promoted an nually by the London Athletic Club. The London Athletic Club came into being in June, 1863, under the style of the Mincing Lane Athletic Club, the majority of the founders having their business in that centre of London trade. In the following year two meetings were held at the West London grounds at Bromp ton. In the spring of 1866 the club changed its name to its pres ent style of the London Athletic Club. The year 1864 marks a definite epoch in the history of modern athletics. On March 3 Cambridge visited Oxford for a match of eight events on the Christ Church cricket ground, the result being a draw, as each side won four events. The Oxford and Cambridge sports were not moved to London until 1867. In the same year, 1864, the Civil Service sports were started, and at the beginning of 1866 the Amateur Athletic Club was formed to "supply the want of an es tablished ground upon which competitions in amateur athletic sports might take place between gentlemen amateurs." The first English championship meeting was promoted by the A.A.C. in 1866. Despite this fact active athletes continued to ally them selves more with the L.A.C. than the A.A.C. The year 1879 marked a point of cleavage and two championship meetings were held : one promoted by the A.A.C., which had up to that time been in the habit of holding the championships in the spring, immedi ately after the Oxford and Cambridge sports, the other being held later in the summer under the management of the L.A.C. for the greater convenience of non-university athletes. In 188o the English Amateur Athletic Association was founded, and Brit ish athletic sports, together with the promotion of the English championships, have remained under the jurisdiction of that body ever since.
Annual championship meetings are held in the dominions and all foreign countries, the programmes being based upon the list of events contested quadrennially at the Olympic games. Of late years in England a general tightening up of the rules has placed a period upon the time during which a man may represent his university. In 1927 the joint committees of the Oxford and Cam bridge university athletic clubs adopted the following new regu lations regarding the eligibility of competitors in inter-university contests: "That the present eligibility rules governing the inter-university athletic sports be cancelled and the following substituted: The eligibility to compete in (I) the inter-university sports, relays and cross-country races shall be limited to members of the two universities who, on the date on which the meeting is held, have not exceeded four calendar years from the date of their matricu lation in either university; (2) Any meeting in which the two universities compete as such, including those mentioned in (I), shall be limited to those who have not exceeded the age of 23 years on Oct. I preceding the meeting in question. These rules, (I) and (2) to take effect as from Oct. I, 1927, but not to affect those who were resident members of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge before that date, to whom the old rules will ap ply." (For eligibility rules in U.S. universities, see ATHLETIC