The order of events in the all-round contests is as follows: one-hundred-yard dash, putting sixteen pound shot, running high jump, half-mile walk, throwing sixteen-pound hammer, pole-vault, one hundred-twenty-yard hurdles, throwing fifty-six pound weight, running broad jump, and one-mile run. The endeavor is, of course, to place the most tiring events as nearly as possible toward the end, but for all that the athlete who can complete the last half of the programme with anything like the same sprightliness with which he began the first part of it must have an immense amount of vitality and be hard as nails.
The individual all-round champions since the beginning of these contests, in 1884, are as fol lows : W. E. Thompson, Montreal ; 1885, M. W. Ford ; 1886, M. W. Ford ; 1887, A. A. Jordan ; 1888, M. W. Ford ; 1889, M. W. Ford ; 189o, A. A. Jordan ; 1891, A. A. Jordan ; 1892, M. O'Sul livan ; 1893, E. W. Goff ; 1894, E. W. Goff ; 1895, J. Cosgrove ; 1896, L. P. Sheldon ; 1897, E. H. Clark ; 1898, E. C. White ; 1899, J. Fred Powers ; 1900, H. Gill, Toronto ; 1901, Adam B. Gunn ; 1902, Adam B. Gunn ; 1903, Ellery H. Clark.
Of these winners Harry Gill of Toronto made the highest score — 636oi points — in I900. Ellery Clark of Boston comes next with his 63181 points, in 1903. Adam B. Gunn, with his 1902 record of 626o points, comes third. The best records made in the various events were as follows : one-hundred-yard dash, iol seconds, by Ford, in 1886 ; putting sixteen-pound shot, 41 feet 51 inches, by Gill, in i9oo; running high jump, 5 feet 112 inches, by Gill, in 19oo; half mile walk, 3 minutes 5o seconds, by Gunn, in Igo' ; throwing sixteen-pound hammer, 122 feet inches, by Clark, in 1903 ; one-hundred twenty-yard hurdle, 164 seconds, by Jordan, in 1891 ; pole-vault, io feet inches, by Powers, in 1899; throwing fifty-six-pound weight, 27 feet 72 inches, by Gill, in 'goo ; one-mile run, 5 min utes 255 seconds, by Gunn, in 1902 ; running broad jump, 21 feet 82 inches, by Powers, in 1899; and quarter-mile run, 545 seconds, by Ford, in 1886.
All of these performances, except, perhaps, the mile, are respectable ; several of them are as good as the average winning performances at college games of men who make a specialty of one event. When a man on the same day can put the shot 41 feet 52 inches, jump within half an inch of 6 feet, throw the fifty-six-pound weight 27 feet 71.- inches, together with competing successfully in seven other events, as Gill did in 1900 ; or throw the hammer 122 feet 81- inches, the fifty-six-pound weight 25 feet 52 inches, walk the half mile in 3 minutes 54 seconds, and run the hundred in lot seconds, as Ellery Clark did in i go3, it is pretty plain that the man who would win an all-round championship is up against a pretty tough propo sition. The 1 go3 champion, Ellery H. Clark, has the honor of having won the championship in 1897 when he was a student at Harvard and then of having won again seven years later by an appre ciably higher score than he made when he won his first victory. Such work is testimony not only to Mr. Clark's constitution and staying powers, but to the fact that the all-round championship calls more for a matured and consistently devel oped athlete than for the comparatively ephemeral skill of the specialist. And the men who have won —men like Clark, Gunn, Gill, and the rest —have been of this sort, husky, lively, and hard as nails.