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What surprises us is that by regular training in the simplest exercises, such as running, leaping, wrestling, and throwing the discus or dart, such splendid results were ever attained. Or shall we say that it was not the wrestling but the dancing side of Greek training which was of chief importance? We may dismiss with a word the fabulous stories of athletic feats at Olympia, where a certain Chionis, a Spartan of early date (Ol. 28–31, cir. 660 B.C.), was said to have leaped fifty-two feet, and afterwards Phayllus of Croton fifty-five feet. We may infer, too, from the use of weights (ἁλτῆρες), that the jump was a standing one. Happily these assertions are only made by late grammarians, and though some German critics are inclined to extend their adoration of Greek training to this point, it will rather, with practical readers, tend to discredit other statements made by the same authority. As we do not hear of a running jump, so we do not hear of a high jump either, at least in public games. Both may have been practised in the palæstra. The distance for a sprint-race for men was two hundred yards, and somewhat shorter for boys. Their longest race at Olympia was twenty-four stadia (4800 yards, 2⅔ miles), which the professors, without any knowledge of the time in which it was done, think more wonderful than the fifty-five-feet jump, but which is equalled in many English sports of the present day.