The Six-Day Skate-Off
Two local professional skaters prepare for a grueling week-long endurance test on the Glide Rink floor.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Articles were signed today for a six-day roller skating race, to be pulled off at the Glide rink within the next thirty days between W. H. Robinson and Roy Opple, local professional skaters. The race will be a go-as-you-please endurance test, the first of its kind to be held in the Northwest. Both competitors will have six days and six nights in which to skate as many hours as they can endure. The man covering the greatest distance wins. A side bet of $250 each has been placed, and the net proceeds will be divided 60 percent for the winner and 40 percent for the loser. The winner will represent Tacoma in the Marathons at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Neither contestant has competed in recent months, necessitating weeks of practice. Robinson intends to proceed slowly, staying on the floor for up to eighteen hours a day, while Opple plans to use speed spurts of two or more hours at a time.
“Both competitors will have six days and six nights in which to skate as many hours as they can endure.”
Endurance sports were the reality TV of the early 1900s, turning human exhaustion into a spectator event. While modern Tacoma has plenty of active recreation, we have largely traded these grueling feats of physical suffering for more regulated athletic competition.
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