Archie Hahn won the 60m, 100m, and 200 meters at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, followed by another gold in the 100 meters at the 1906 intercalated Games in Athens. If you count the 1906 as a real Olympics, then his back to back double would not be repeated until Carl Lewis 1984-1988. (and even that has controversy)
His hometown was Milwaukee hence his nickname, "The Milwaukee Meteor".
Archie Hahn later coached at the the University of Virginia and wrote the “landmark” book How to sprint, the theory of sprint racing;
Thanks to print on demand, the book is now available to the public. It is public domain, but chances are your local library may not have it.
How to Sprint, the Theory of Sprint Racing
The disclaimer in the preface does warn us the book contains errors and printing imperfections. Personally, I recommend this book mostly as a trivia, historical and collectors items. As for training secrets, I think we’ve come a long way since 1929.
This book was written before the use of starting blocks.
Let’s start with cover… they could have put a proper picture on the cover instead of the Shakespearian pen, paper and seal photo. The book isn’t that old.
On the cover, it has the Authors name, Archibald Hahn, followed by some garbage characters [FROM OLD CATAL. I assume it was meant to say [From old catalog stock number… You would think there was a QA process to detect this early in the printing?
It is also missing page 1 of the Table of Contents.
Here is a training sample, for Month One, Week One which is utterly hilarious!
From one to three laps on a 400m track each day, using extremely slow jog pace, preferably interspersed with short walks. No Sprints or starts.
That’s it.
We’ve come a long way, baby.
Trivia
On the flip side, it is full of great trivia. For example,
Lawrence “Lon” Meyers was the first person to with 8 National titles in the year 1880: the USA 100-220-440-880 and the Canadian 100-220-440-880. Note that at the USA Champs, he had run 7 races in one day including qualifying races.
It also discusses the first spikes worn in the USA 1868 at an indoor meet… by a Brit! So they must be good (that was the consensus at the time)
The book How to sprint, the theory of sprint racing;
ha, we certainly have come a long way
Archie Hahn is a Great Uncle of mine. Verda Hahn was my Dad’s Mother and one of nine children.
They were all raised in Kenosha Wis. My son, Dave is a competetive cyclist and that and speed skating was in the family genes. The velodrome in Kenosha saw many of my relatives ride the wooden track. The Hahns were from the Dodgeville, Wis area and Verda and her mother worked for Frank Lloyd Wright in the early days of Taliesen. A Great Great Uncle Larsen was the stone mason for Wright and came over from Norway(Ithink). Great to see this book is still our there for collectors. jpl
He is a great uncle of mine as well. My grandmother was a brother. I was gifted as well. MVP Football, 1st team all conference Football, MVP 2 time baseball. Top basketball player in the area as well. I live in Dodgeville, WI.