ATHLETICS (from Gk, ei0X7n-hs, athl(Ws, contestant). The term has of late been definitely applied to recognized contests of physical skill end endurance, for pastime and for the develop ment of bodily strength. These are commonly divided into two classes—track and field games, and gymnastic performances. The former include the running or walking of various distances, hurdling, high and broad jumping, pole-vaulting, throwing the hammer and weight, and putting the shot. The latter comprise the t*e of Indian clubs, dumbbells, parallel and horizontal bars, weight-lifting. rope-climbing, tug of war, and various exercises in Yenning over fixed objects.
Athletic games were brought to a high develop ment among the Greeks, and a class of profes sional athletes grew up, who began their train ing when scarcely out of boyhood. They we re obliged to submit to a rigorous discipline, in cluding careful avoidance of excesses, a special diet, regular exercise, and the cultivation of courage, self-control, and resourcefulness. There were at all times among the Greeks those who practiced athletic exercises from pure love of sport: but when these ancient amateurs com peted in the games, they preferred running, jnmping, and javelin-throwing, where natural vigor might take the place of long exercise. in later times the athlete was a huge mass of flesh and muscle, as may be seen in the mosaic from the Baths of Caraealla, or even in the fine real istic bronze statue of a pugilist in Rome, or the brutal head of a boxer from Olympia. Under the Roman Empire we find the professional athletes organized into corporations. (See GAMES, AN CIENT. ) Of the Britons before the Roman conquest we know that they were bold, active, and capable of bearing great fatigue. The Romans drafted the strongest of them into military service, and by the introduction of luxurious habits debilitated the weaker ones who were left at home. The later infusion of the new blood of the Teutonic tribes corrected this tendency and brought with it a new love of athletic contests. Wherever a Scan dinavian leader has left a tradition at all, it is one relating to his feats of strength and agil ity. Thus Olaf Tryggeson; an early king of
Norway, boasted that he could walk round the outside of his boat upon the oars as the men were rowing: that he could hurl two spears at once, one from either hand, and that be excelled all men in archery and swimming. In the later Saxon Period, such exercises as inured the body to hardship and fatigue constituted the chief part of the education of youth. With the intro duction of the Norman influence and the tenden cieli of the age of tournaments. jousts, and other contests of personal skill and prow,ess were the prineipal diversion of the upper classes. The sons of citizens and yeomen had their sports as well : they fought with clubs and bucklers and ran at the quintain on every village green, and contended with poles on the ice in winter, "not always without hurt." as Fitzstephen says, "for some break their arms and some their legs, but youth, emulous of glory, seek these exercises." With the decay of chivalry a great change took place toward the end of the Fifteenth Century, and exercises requiring the exertion of muscular strength went out of fashion to such an extent that the Government thought it necessary to in terfere. A proclamation of Henry I'll., after re citing that "it ever bath here of old antiquitie used in this realme for all lustye gentlemen to pass the delectable season of summer after divers manner and sundry fashions of disport," estab lishes a series of exercises with prizes to be con tested for in open competition. His successor, Henry VI IL, added example to precept in his younger days, and daily amused himself in east ing the bar, wrestling, fencing with swords and battle-axes, throwing the hammer, and similar recreations, in which few could excel him. Such pastimes, with broad jumping and running were, according to the authority of Thomas Wilson in The Art,- of Rhetorigue (1551), "the necessary accomplishment of a man of fashion." James 1.