Stamford Bridge, London, 1–4 July 1927
The British Championships saw the strongest performance in the long hurdles, as Lord Burghley dashed to a British title with a short-lived world record time of 54.2. This result corresponded to 53.9 over the metric distance. His strong rival and clubmate, Thomas Livingstone-Learmonth, squeezed into second place and Italy's Luigi Facelli, who would emerge as a formidable competitor to Burghley in subsequent years, took third place. Sten Pettersson from Sweden, considered among Europe's top long hurdlers, failed to advance past the semi-finals.
The race took place in London on 2nd July. Later the same day, Johnny Gibson lowered the world record for the event to 52.6 at the American Championships.
Gibson and Burghley had already clashed earlier in the spring at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia. Their head-to-head battle had ended in a narrow victory for Gibson.
Lord Burghley practised hurdling by placing a matchbox on top of a hurdle. It had to remain in place when he cleared the hurdle. In the 1970s, American sprint hurdler and Munich Olympic champion Rod Milburn improved upon this: he had to lick the hurdle so eagerly that a coin placed on top of it flew off, but the hurdle remained upright.
Germans began to surge towards the top in various athletics events after the country's Olympic ban had been served. In the 1950s, Helmut Körnig, who served as manager of Westfalenhallen in Dortmund, won the British 100-yard championship, clocking 10.1 (equivalent to 11.0 for 100 metres).
The 800-metre Olympic champion from Paris, Douglas Lowe, won both the 440 and 880 yards for the first time at the British Open. Cecil Griffiths, who finished over two seconds behind Lowe, took silver in the two-lap race.
Willem Peters of the Netherlands jumped to victory in the triple jump with a national record and world-leading mark of 15.48. Like other Dutch athletes, he enjoyed competing in Britain, as he went on to win the event in the next three championships as well.
Sweden's Henry Lindblad cleared 3.81 (12-6) n the pole vault, which, however, would not have given him much of a chance against the Americans. Lindblad's compatriot, perhaps the season's most consistent hammer thrower, Ossian Skiöld, took victory in his event with the season's ninth-best result of 50.29 (165-0).
Athletes of Finnish descent were also seen competing at Stamford Bridge. The future Olympic javelin silver medallist Béla Szepes from Hungary hurled the spear to the season's fourth-longest mark of 64.80 (212-7½) and claimed victory.
100 yards
pole vault
120 yards hurdles
Medallists (NUTS)