Magic Shoe

At the Millrose games (see above), another record was broken. It was done, many believed, by virtue of a dissolute, cast-off track-shoe. Harold M. Osborne, famed Illinois jumper and Olympic Champion, carefully placed that old shoe beside the special runway which had been marked out for him at one side of the jumping posts. Many athletes believe that in a cast-off shoe, as in a saint's relic or the trophy of a holy war, lodges some curious potency ; and who shall say that Osborne's was not charmed? For, after acutely regarding this raffish talisman, Osborne measured his distance, sprang from the ground higher than ever a man had hoisted his body before at an indoor meet. As he crossed the bar, his leg touched it, set it to tottering. Seated on the ground, Osborne looked imploringly up. Nearby, mute, sat the magic shoe. The bar, as if upheld by legerdemain, stopped its quaking, its teetering, rested fast on the uprights, 6 ft. 61/4 in. up. Thus was a new world's record for the indoor* high-jump set-- one inch higher than that made by Brown and Landon in the Millrose meet two years ago.

*World's outdoor record, 6 ft. 8 1-4 in., made by Harold M. Osborne in 1924. (TIME, June 9).