![]() Neither the discus, nor for that matter the javelin, are mentioned in either Henry Fazakerley Wilkinson’s Modern Athletics in 1875 or Montague Shearman’s Athletics and Football in 1887, where the only regular throwing events mentioned are the hammer and putting the weight or shot, with references to occasional competitions in throwing the cricket ball and tossing the caber. The discus was not brought back for the second Liverpool Olympics in 1863, although Parkinson and Fairweather were back, tying for second place in the pole vault. The Evening Standard gives the additional information that there were five entrants. Parkinson, with Alexander Fairweather of Manchester finishing in second place, but unfortunately reports no further details of the competition. The Liverpool Mercury reported that the event was won by Mr R.T. There was an attempt to establish it in England when it was included in the Liverpool Olympic Games of 1862. That no British discus throw was recorded until 1896 shows us that, although Walker suggested throwing it was useful exercise, nobody in Britain considered it a competitive event. He also penned and performed the Olympic Ode, a rather long pastiche of the ancient poet Pindar, which he read at the opening ceremony to a bemused, and uncomprehending, audience of modern Athenians to whom his English accented, three-thousand-year-old dialect was little more than gibberish. However, his involvement in the games was completely confined to sporting failure. Ironically, Robertson is less remembered for his performance in the discus, than for winning bronze in the tennis doubles, despite losing his only match after receiving a bye to the semi-final. In the circumstances, fourth position was a very creditable effort. Unfortunately, there was no hammer event at Athens, so he entered the discus, a discipline he had never tried before, as the next best thing. He was hoping to enter the hammer, the event for which he had won a Blue. He went to Athens because as an Oxford-educated classicist he was curious to see the revived Olympics. ![]() Robertson only really threw the discus at the Olympics by accident. Even the gold medallist, Robert Garrett of the USA, only managed 29.15 metres, and he was using a much more athletic and mobile technique than that described by Walker. To put these distances in context, George Robertson, the first British man for whom we actually have a measured discus throw, managed just 25.2 metres to come fourth at the 1896 Athens Olympics. His estimates are quite interesting as he suggests one might expect to throw a one-pound lead discus 140 feet (42.67 metres), or a half pound brick one 160 feet (48.77 metres). Walker suggested that throwing the discus was excellent exercise and gave some estimations of how far an averagely fit young man might expect to throw one. Girolamo Mercuriale author of De Arte Gymnastica, 1569
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