Page 120 - Olympism in Socialism

shooting and marksmanship. Eight days after
Corpus Christi, the main tournament was
customarily held (the Royal Schoot), in which the
contestants competed in knocking down a
wooden cock, which earned the winner the title of
the King Marksman,” records one of the earliest
annals on the history of sports in Poland. In
1286, the first cock shooting contest, organised
by the “Marksmen’s Fraternities'', the oldest
burghers’ sports associations in Poland, was held
in Swidnica in Lower Silesia.
Knights’ contests, sort of equestrian sports,
were popular in the 16th century. Late in the
18th century, attention was drawn to the
desirability of introducing universal physical
training by the Commission of National
Education (1773-94). The instructions given to
Prefects were: “Everyday time should be provided
for games for children ... During recreation and
holidays from school, exercises and games should
keep the pupils busy all the time . . . It seems that
the best sort of exercises for the development of
strength, stamina and agility, not to mention
daring, are the following: playing ball with
running and full exercise, palon or the game with
a big ball, tossing stones into water, running
various distances, running uphill and through
difficult terrain, horse riding.”
At that time, however, the young people in
Poland were not able to take full advantage of this
project. In 1795, Poland disappeared from the
maps as a sovereign country. Those ‘ho in later
years wanted to carry on the job started a little
earlier, were positively prevented from doing so by
the partitioning powers. The development of
modern sports proceeded slowly and in a very
irregular fashion.
Relatively the best opportunities for sports

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