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Champion who found strength in adversity

Murray Halberg will always be tagged with fellow distance runner Peter Snell and their master coach Arthur Lydiard in the annals of New Zealand Olympic history.

On September 2, 1960, Snell and Halberg won gold medals in the 800m and 5000m track events respectively at the Rome Olympics that, within an hour of each other, put New Zealand on a world map as probably never before.

Suddenly the global media wanted to know all about little New Zealand and how two of its runners could win two of the most prized events on the athletic programme. It was for so many years New Zealand’s greatest feat at an Olympics, and not till quite recently has it been challenged.

Snell’s win was very much a surprise. He was new to international competition. Halberg’s victory wasn’t. He had run in the 1500m final at the previous Olympics in Melbourne in 1956 and, given his impressive results since in the longer event, was regarded as the favourite for the 5000m.

The pair had Lydiard with them in Rome only thanks to a public appeal to raise the necessary funds, and he was vital to their success, something that Halberg hadn’t had in Melbourne.

Halberg knew that Snell had already won gold when he went out on the track for his final, and he was to say later it was just the encouragement he needed.

He and Lydiard had planned that his best chance of success would be to make his move with three of the 12 and a bit laps to go after running at the tail of the field initially. By the time he did so, Halberg was second, and the bold, or even foolhardy decision to some, had the powerful element of surprise. He opened up a gap of 30 metres, but he knew he needed it if he was to reach the finishing tape first ahead of the chasing German Hans Grodotzki.

At the time I was a schoolboy, and like so many other New Zealanders I was listening to eminent broadcaster Sir Lance Cross’s breakfast radio commentary from Rome, years before television coverage was available.

It was exciting when Halberg sprinted clear but quite another matter as Cross said his lead was under threat. It was a relief when we knew the result, and a spent Halberg was lying exhausted on the ground with the tape in his hands.

He had hung on grimly in the end, winning by eight metres, and Snell was on the track to congratulate him – though he would say Halberg didn’t know who he was initially, before recovering.

Halberg’s grit over the last three laps typified so much about the man, how hard he was to beat, as his friend and Rome marathon bronze medallist Barry Magee would testify, having beaten

Halberg only once. Strength in adversity was another characteristic, no more so than when he suffered a terrible rugby injury aged 17 that left him close to death, and eventually with a withered left arm, and being naturally left-handed having to learn to write with his right.

A runner’s arms are so important to their balance and such an asset in generating speed, yet Halberg’s curled-up left arm and wrist hanging limply were of limited value. Yet Halberg would never use it as an excuse for not being at his best.

He belonged to the Owairaka running club in Auckland, and was coached by Bert Payne. Payne had guided Halberg to an Auckland secondary schools 800m title, but he knew Halberg needed someone to develop his potential.

He asked Lydiard to coach Halberg, and he became part of a formidable Owairaka group that was to revolutionise middle and long-distance training, based on running 100 miles a week, much of it in the gut-busting Waitā kere ranges.

Lydiard was a good runner and he used himself as a guinea pig for developing his training methods. Besides Halberg, Snell and Magee he had a stable of outstanding runners, including Olympians John Davies and Bill Baillie.

Lydiard earned huge international recognition, and he would soon learn how remarkable Halberg was. He thrived on hard work, and his training times improved rapidly.

Through much of the 20th century, middle-distance runners were driven by breaking the fourminute barrier for the one mile, and Halberg was the first New Zealander to do it, in Dublin in 1958 in a time of 3min 57.5s. He would hold world records for one mile,

athlete, philanthropist b July 7, 1933 d November 30, 2022

two miles, three miles, four miles, and the four-by-one-mile relay.

Halberg was a disappointing 11th in the 1500m final in the Melbourne Olympics. He learned a lot from that experience, and soon concentrated on the three miles and 5000m.

That resulted in Commonwealth Games gold medals for the three miles in 1958 and 1962, the latter when Halberg ran superbly to see off Canadian Bruce Kidd.

Halberg said that, without Lydiard, it would have been an absolute miracle for him to have been Olympic champion, and in 1963 he wrote of Lydiard: ‘‘The man I have cursed most on cold, wet winter days (out training) and thanked most on the victory dais. He has been my inspiration, guide, mentor and friend.’’

Halberg had a number of jobs, including teaching, being an industrial chemist and a shop worker, but he found his calling with his founding in 1963 of the Halberg Trust for Crippled Children, which became the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation.

One of its arms is the New Zealand Sports Awards, which Halberg relaunched. He has been part of the foundation, raising millions of dollars for charity. He received an MBE in 1961, and was knighted in 1988 for services to sport and the community.

He was reserved in public, modest, determined, and with a strong work ethic.

I first met Halberg as a schoolboy at Lancaster Park, in Christchurch, in 1962, the day Snell set his world 800m and 880 yards world records on a grass track. I asked him for his autograph that day, among a group of others, but he refused, telling us if we wanted it we had to write to him, which I did.

He died on Waiheke Island aged 89, having previously had cancer and a heart attack. He is survived by his wife Phyllis, and children Greta, Carl and Stefan, and two grandchildren. – By Peter Bidwell

Obituaries

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2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

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