As mentioned in an earlier post, the Jack Lovelock story keeps on giving.
The latest was a story from the Evening Star's Saturday Sports Special of September 14, 1940, originally published in The Sporting Life (Britain) and it contained references I hadn't seen before in relation to his preparation, and success, in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games 1500m final.
Four years after, Lovelock's world record created in the event still stood and he prefaced his remarks with the comment, "It is the privilege to the aged and infirm to recollect their past, and this privilege I must now claim."
Lovelock said he was sitting with all his training and racing diaries in front of him.
"These notes include every item of training, weight before and after performances, distances run, trials timed, competitors assessed, auxiliary training methods used, such as swimming, weekend amusements, general health.
"All the hundred and one things whose detail enables the polished athlete to keep a check on his own and his opponents' performances. Still more, my judgment and views of the moment were committed to paper, and now lie in front of me."
Lovelock described his training in the lead-up to Berlin.
"Four weeks were spent in training and competing in various parts of England, always in company with, and greatly assisted by, the greatest of athletes, Jerry Cornes, a man as magnificent in personality and performance as ever graced an English cinder track. Also helping me were those great but less mature New Zealanders, Cecil Matthews and Pat Boot, both of whom were later to win Empire titles in Australia [1938]," he said.
Once in Berlin, the nature of preparation changed.
"Training for the first four days was hard, deadly hard. We mixed with the others on the training track, discussed everything from politics and art to training and racing tactics, with Americans, Swedes, and all our other friends in all parts of the world.
"On two or three evenings of the week we went for steady cross-country walks, and early bed finished a day devoted wholly to the polishing of absolute athletic perfection.
"My diary tells me that I drew eleventh in this field of 12. The start was on a bend, and the starting line was so drawn that those of us on the outside must have had several yards extra to run in the first straight.
"I have vague memories of everybody being very jumpy and nervous at the start. I was holding a tight grip on myself; when others were rushing around, I was doing my best to sit quietly by the track side."
Then, having acknowledged that the field for the final was 'probably the greatest that has ever been assembled for any middle-distance race' with the 1932 champion Luigi Beccali, the world mile record-holder Glenn Cunningham, Cornes, who finished second in 1932, Archie San Romani and Gene Venzke and Swede Eric Ny who had placed fifth in Los Angeles four years earlier, the race began.
"At the start we moved away fast, and I decided it was useless to try to race to the first corner, and hung back slightly and moved in the middle of the field as they swung out and round.
Glenn Cunningham leads the field with Jack Lovelock in black in third and Luigi Beccali behind wearing 331 with Jerry Cornes in 256. Alexander Turnbull Library - MSX-2261-048
"This in any other race might have been risky tactics, but in competition of this standard there is never any chance of being badly closed in. Sooner or later the field is bound to swing out.
"The pace was steady, but not excessive, my first lap being 61½. In the third lap Cunningham got ahead, and I moved up behind him, debating how long I should stay there, for, although the pace was steady, it was far from exciting, and at one time I felt we were going too slowly.
"At the bell Ny came up, but Cunningham again took the lead. Round the bend I had debated whether in this seemingly slow procession I should already light out for home, but I decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
"I had decided in my own mind that I must break from the field at some unexpected point, preferably at the bell or at the 300 metres mark.
"Just before the back straight I held back, and catching the others unawares, I slipped by them before they could change gear and get really under way.
"At that point the race was won. That sudden break had settled the issue completely. Had that effort been left until the others were expecting a move, such a break would have been impossible. We would have struggled round the last bend together and fought it out at the front straight.
"As it was, with a gap once made one had to do little more than to coast in, relaxing slightly on the last bend, deliberately tantalising the opposition and allowing them to draw nearer with a slight increase of pace in the front straight with the object of finally breaking the opponents' will and shake off any further attack.
"In my diary I remark casually, 'It was the most beautifully-executed race of my career – that race for all practical and tactical purposes was won over 300 metres from home.'"