Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/529

 sixty-two seconds. Mr. Shaw began with a great all-round burst, at his very first sports meeting winning five mixed events. The famous three-stride trick over hurdles he first learned in November, 1885, when one of the groundmen at Cambridge (Mr. Shaw's University) taught him. Mr. Shaw's gains cleverest use of this method of progression was in Paris in 1886, when winning the 120 mètres hurdle race; the hurdles were placed 10 yards apart, and Mr. Shaw accomplished the very ticklish task of keeping his "three-step" all the way. Immediately after this he went to live for some time in New Zealand, where he won very nearly every hurdle championship but one. At the Christchurch sports he made his great quarter-mile hurdle record, and at the same meeting he won the 120 yards hurdle handicap, actually from 25 yards behind scratch, making his whole distance in 183 seconds, both in heat and final. This was the fastest handicap ever run, and the longest starts ever successfully conceded. May, 1890, saw him back in England, and the mere list of his wins here would be tedious. Notably, however, he won the North of England Championship, beating Mr. Bulger, and the L.A.C. Hurdle Challenge Cup. In the English championship he was unplaced, refusing to turn out, after the misunderstanding alluded to in treating of Mr. Bulger's career. This was altogether a most unfortunate race, for Mr. B. C. Green, whom we shall presently speak of, and who, with Messrs. Bulger and Shaw, would probably have made a gallant fight, fell in his heat. The account of races between Messrs. Bulger and Shaw stands at two wins for the latter out of three meetings, in 120 yards hurdle contests, while at longer distances Mr. Shaw gives everybody starts. Last year, also, he beat the world's record for a quarter of a mile over ten 3 ft. hurdles, his time being 57 seconds—a really marvellous feat—and followed it up by equalling his New Zealand quarter-mile record over the higher hurdles, of 62 seconds, turning an involuntary summersault over his last hurdle. Mr. Shaw is 5 feet 9 inches high, and weighs, when trained, 10 stone 8 lbs., and is twenty-six years of age.

This gentleman may fairly be called the all-round champion medical athlete. He is a student at St. Bartholomew's, and has had a most brilliant career in the departments of the high jump, the long jump, sprint racing on the flat, and hurdlework. He made his mark at many school sports, and the enumeration of half his early wins would be an impossibility in this article. Again and again he has worthily represented the United Hospitals Athletic Club in their matches with the Edinburgh University and the L.A.C. In 1890, in the match with Edinburgh University, he won the 100 yards, the quarter-mile, and the 120 yards over hurdles. The 100 yards race in the match with the L.A.C., in the same year, brought about a wonderful finish, Mr. Green, Mr. Pelling, and Mr. G. S. S. Marshall running a treble dead-heat. In the 1891 match with the Edin-