Excerpt from Distance and Cross Country Running America's middle distance runners and sprinters arc famous throughout the world. Her distance runners rank second only to the Englishmen, whose climate and general upbringing have made them peerless in this one branch of sport. These are the two salient points that strike one in glancing hastily down the vista of American champions from 1876 to the present day. The American sprinter and quarter-miler are the best in the world today, and they have been so ever since 1880, only four years after the first American championships were held. The half-milers have found their equals in England, though that famous American distance runner. Kilpatrick, holds the best half-mile record ever made. But in such men as Brediti, who defeated Kilpatrick in England; Workman of Oxford, Cross, Tysoe, the late world's champion, and numbers of others, our British cousins have shown an equality. In mile running, it is true we had the greatest of all distance runners (W. G. George alone excepted) in the person of Tommy Conned, who. running under New York Athletic Club colors, made the present world's amateur record of 4 minutes 15 3-5 seconds. But Conned was not American born, and thus the credit for the performance is shared with the Britishers. The best mile record ever made in America is that held by George W. Orton, at 4 minutes 21 4-5 seconds, while in England hardly a year rolls by that some new man does not beat 4 minutes 20 seconds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.