Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/526

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CHAMPIONS.
529

sident of the O.U.B.C. Then came Henley, and, although one of the beaten pair for the Goblets—won by Messrs. Muttlebury and Gardner—he repeated his last year's feat of winning both the Diamond Sculls and the Amateur Championship. He was stroke, too, to the winning University four. In 1890 the spell of Oxford defeat was broken, and, as president of the Oxford Club, Mr. Nickalls had the gratification of beating Cambridge by a length. Again, with Lord Ampthill, he won the University pairs, and the Diamond Sculls at Henley. He managed a variation on the 1889 programme, however, by winning (still with Lord Ampthill) the Goblets. Another variation was not so gratifying; for, in the Amateur Championship, he suffered defeat at the hands of Mr. Gardner.

Last year again saw Mr. Nickalls triumphant in the Oxford boat in the Inter-'Varsity race. At Henley he had a seat in the winning boat for the Grand Challenge, and, once more with Lord Ampthill, won the Goblets. Feeling, no doubt, that by three successive wins he had sufficiently asserted his claim on the Diamond Sculls, he resigned in favour of his brother. But the Amateur Championship was a different matter; for, after three successive wins (the last a walk over), it had been wrested from him, in 1890, by Mr. Gardner. Wherefore he girded up his flannels and recovered the title. Now, after his brilliant career as an athlete, Mr. Guy Nickalls enters the serious race of life as a stockbroker.


James Kibblewhite.


James Kibblewhite.
From a Photo. by H. Hemmins, Swindon.

Of form and feature as here pictured, with a first birthday in 1866, a height of 5 feet 9 1/2 inches and a weight, in running costume, of 10 stone, Mr. James Kibblewhite is our one and ten mile amateur champion pedestrian. Trophies to the value of more than 1,000 he has collected during his successful running career, and some are here shown. Among his spoils the 50-guinea Challenge Cup of the Salford Harriers, the Colmore Challenge Cup, and the Cheltenham Trophy of a similar kind are conspicuous. His distance begins at a mile, and extends up to as far as an amateur usually has opportunity of running in competition. Beginning the sport in 1884, when eighteen years of age, Mr. Kibblewhite has had several years of very hard leg-work, and has victoriously fought out many a hard scamper. His mile running has curiously "favoured" the figures 4 minutes 231/5 seconds, that being his recorded time for the distance again and again. He made that same time once in a handicap, in which he had to catch and pass 150 men; let that runner who has accomplished such a feat tell what it means. For a mile race on a grass track his time was once recorded as 4 minutes 20 seconds, but his best record is undoubted, his three miles in 14 minutes 293/5 seconds at Stamford Bridge, which still stands as a world's record, amateur or professional. He runs across country as well as on the flat, and has won the Ten-miles Southern Counties Cross Country Championship twice, and the National Championship of the same class and distance once. Running on the flat he has placed to his credit the One-mile Amateur Championship three times, the four miles once, the ten miles once, the Two-miles