FOUR OUT OF FIVE RULES APPROVED BY FARRELL

E. L. Farrell, coach of the University track team, in an interview yesterday expressed his approval of all except one of the changes made in the college track rules and regulations last Saturday at the annual convention of the Inter-Collegiate Association of Amateur Athletics of America in New York.

The Crimson track mentor found four out of the five innovations sane and commendable. Three of these changes in the rulings had to do with the hurdle events. The point was made at the convention that a runner who knocks down most of his hurdles suffered a sufficient handicap for not clearing them cleanly, so it was voted to do away with the rule disqualifying a hurdler for upsetting the barriers. A false start in a hurdle event has hither to been penalized by setting the runner back a yard. It was decided, however, that this penalty was too sever, and the rules were amended to allow a first false break go unpenalized, while a second would cause the disqualification of the hurdler. To make the hurdles better able to stand up under the hard usage they undergo, it was decided to increase their weight from 16 to 24 pounds.

The fourth point which met the track coaches appropriation was the adoption of a new scale of penalties for jumping the gun in flat races. Runners are penalized differently according to the distance of the race, the size of the penalty varying from one foot in a fifty yard dash to three yards in events of 440 yards and over.

The one change which Farrell disapproved of was that made in the specifications for the standards in the high jump and pole vault. The new standards required by the I. C. A. A. A. A. permit the crossbar to fall off either backward or forward, and the bar rests on a support 1 1-2 inches by 2 3-8 inches, instead of a peg.

Farrell's objection to the ruling was on grounds of practicability. It would be well-night impossible to keep the crossbar on the standards on a windy day, since, even with the standards previously in use, considerable difficulty was experienced on this score. In the case of the high-jump, it is possible to hold the bar on the standards until just before the jumper makes his try, but any such arrangement, Farrell felt, would be impossible in the pole-vault.