On 7 September, 1960, Dixie Willis lined up in the final of the women’s 800 metres at the Rome Olympic Games. Almost 52 years later, it’s about time she was told she finished the race.

An inexperienced 18-year-old from Western Australia, Willis had run fastest time in the previous day’s heats. For the first 700 metres of the final, she was either in the lead or contesting it with the eventual winner, Lyudmila Shevtsova of the Ukraine/Soviet Union.

From that point on, it’s not exactly clear what happened. Nor does the available evidence provide a complete picture of Willis’s run up the final straight. But it does present a compelling case that she crossed the finish line and should be regarded as a finisher, rather than the non-finisher she is universally reported to have been.

In summary, the evidence is: host broadcaster film shows Willis crossing the finish line at a jog-walk some 20 seconds after the winner; the official Australian Olympic report lists her as a finisher; further host broadcaster film shows Willis off the track with around 70 metres to run after either stepping on the plinth, or being contacted or baulked by other runners and slumping briefly to hands and knees; finally, a picture of the finish in the official Games’ Report shows all nine finalists on the track as the winner crosses the line.

The film (which you can find at YouTube, ‘Brenda Jones (Carr) Silver 800m’) shows four women in contention for the medals in the final straight– Willis and her Australian teammate Brenda Jones, Shevtsova and Germany’s Ursula Donath.

With 70 metres to run, Willis loses the lead and is then tightened for room as the Soviet runner and Jones press past. A stride or two later, she loses balance, throws an arm in the air, and steps onto the infield.

It is not obvious what caused Willis to step off the track. Perhaps she was clipped as the others moved past or trod on a heel as they moved in, perhaps she trod on the track border, perhaps she just lost concentration. In any case, her reaction indicates it was not intentional. Another excerpt (‘Rome Olympic Games 1960 Women’s 800m’) shows her slump briefly to her hands and knees just after stepping onto the infield.

And there Dixie Willis’s Olympic final appeared to come to an end. In any case, her fate was submerged by Jones’s silver medal less than a step behind Shevtsova’s world record-equalling win in 2:04.3.

There is no unanimity about the reporting and recording of Willis’ result, either in contemporary reports or compilations since. Among the annotations are: “fell 90 meters from the finish”, “fell in final”, “fell in final and did not finish”, “with 150 meters (sic!) to go, she suddenly threw her hands in the air and staggered off the track,” “scratched” and “tired badly and fell when she tripped over the track border”.

Not even the IAAF World Record Progression book gets it right, stating in the description of Shevtsova’s equal world record - “led at the 700m mark, then fell over and did not finish”.

The ‘historical results’ section of Athletics Australia’s website records “did not finish (fell).”

The official report of the Rome Olympics lists Willis as ‘scratched’. Clearly this does not have the meaning we assign to it (i.e. did not participate). From other middle-distance results in the report, however, it would seem to mean ‘did not finish’.

As for Willis, she just assumed she had been disqualified and took the matter no further. 

And there it seemed destined to rest, until Athletics Australia statistician Paul Jenes was sent the YouTube footage by Trevor Vincent as part of research he (Jenes) was doing on Jones (now Brenda Carr). To his astonishment, he noticed Willis jog/walk across the line more than 20 seconds after the medallists.

So Willis had got to the finish.

Further evidence emerged. A picture in the Games official report (Vol. II, p.190), taken as the first two crossed the line, clearly shows nine runners on the track. Given that the eighth finisher – Zbikowska of Poland – recorded 2:11.8, 7.5 seconds slower than the winner, the depth of the picture must have been at least 45 metres, indicating Willis had come straight back onto the track then jogged slowly to the finish.

Finally, the smoking gun: the Australian National Sports Museum unearthed a copy of the official Australian 1960 Olympic report. Willis’s performance was recorded as “ninth in final, no time taken.”

The athletics section manager in Rome was Judy Patching – subsequently secretary-general of the Australian Olympic Federation (now AOC) and the team manager was Syd Grange, subsequently AOF president. They were hardly likely to have got it wrong, which seems to take care of the (admittedly remote) possibility Willis may have been disqualified.

After all these years, then, it seems the only possible conclusion is that Dixie Willis did finish the 1960 Rome Olympic women’s 800 metres final. It’s long since time to acknowledge that fact.

Dixie Willis went on to set world records for both 800 metres and 880 yards in 1962 and to win the gold medal in the latter event at the 1962 Commonwealth Games.

Trevor Vincent, who has been the driving force in digging out the facts of the 1960 race, was the 3000 metres steeplechase gold medallist at those Games.

I stubbed my big toe on a rock. It’s purple now, maybe tomorrow it will be black, blue, or a bit of both.

Two days into a stay at Falls Creek, I decided to run Spion Kopje, the brilliant 24km run the ‘out’ section of which ends with an undulating climb to the summit of Spion Kopje. Tough, but widely regarded as one of the best runs at Falls.

I wasn’t expecting a ‘pb’. I was prepared to pepper my run with judiciously-timed walks. Having survived all the hard bits, I was back on the dirt road up the back of Mt Nelse. It is one of my favourite sections of the run, a steady, not-too-steep climb on a good surface.

Good until I encountered the rock, that is. Smooth, round, about the size of a volley ball, buried in the dirt. Like an iceberg, its bulk – and menace - was below the surface. I could have stepped clean over it, could have scuffed it with my left shoe and merely stumbled: instead, I caught it flush on, stubbing my big toe, rolling over, and ending up staring into, and cursing, the clear blue sky.

After a few minutes’ limping, I was able to run again, albeit painfully. Oh, and also not downhill, because that jammed my throbbing toe into the toe-box of the shoe. Seeing about 70 percent of the distance left was downhill, that was somewhat of a problem.

Still, as the only member of our group to attempt Spion Kopje, with a multi-coloured toe to show for it, the silver lining of the cloud over my big toe has been having bragging rights without the necessity to back up with another epic run. This period of barely-earned respect and admiration will probably have expired by the time you’re reading about it.

 It also offered the perfect excuse to watch the next day’s session of 400s out on the Langfords Gap aqueducts. With over 120 runners taking part, both the logistics and the spectacle were formidable. Falls at Christmas-New Year is a great time to be a distance runner.

Most of Australia’s top runners are here, together with a far bigger number who either want to reach the same level, or simply get better. It is a time for building bases and relationships, a sound foundation of aerobic fitness and the realisation you are not alone in what is often referred to as a solitary sport both being valuable assets.

Inevitably, it is also a time to reflect on the year just past. Australian middle and long-distance running had a mixed time of it in 2011, memorable achievements balanced by disappointments.

In May, after Ben St Lawrence had broken the national record for 10,000 metres, Eloise Wellings had qualified for the Daegu 10,000 and Kaila McKnight had got the A-standard for 1500 in Korea, I wrote a column titled, “we’ve been here before”. It pointed out that we had been producing distance championship qualifiers for a few years now without any of them breaking through to perform on the bigger stage.

Some apparently viewed this as a negative sentiment, or as criticism. It was neither. Instead, it was an expression of hope that one of our distance representatives would make the same impact in Daegu as Craig Mottram had in Helsinki 2005 and Melbourne 2006.

In any event, it didn’t happen and distance running copped it in the neck somewhat in post-world championships reviews for under-performing. One obvious response is, “at least they got there” – unlike sprinters, 400m runners, high jumpers, hammer throwers. Our track and field team in Daegu, as in Delhi the previous year, had more holes than a Swiss cheese.

Most of these athletes are beginning their Olympic year at Falls, and you’d imagine one of their stronger motivations at the moment is to do better at London 2012 than Daegu 2011. Falling short of expectation one year is always a strong motivator to do better the next.

Not all of them will do better, of course. That’s the nature of athletics. No-one ever prepares to fail, but, inevitably, some do. One minute you’re flying, the next you’re flat on your back, staring into the blue sky, cursing your throbbing big toe.

10 years ago: the 2001 Zatopek, 6 December

If the stand-out individual performance in Zatopek:Ten history is Ron Clarke’s world record in 1963, Susie Power’s win in the 2001 women’s race would be next in line.

Clarke ran the fastest-time ever, Power the fourth-fastest time in the world in 2001. No-one else in race history – not Steve Moneghetti, not Lisa Ondieki, not Luke Kipkosgei, not Carolyn Schuwalow – has produced a run ranking that high on the annual list.

Power is one of the great ‘might have beens’ of Australian athletics. A brilliant talent, she was largely unfulfilled. A silver medallist at a world junior championships, bronze medallist in a Commonwealth Games, yet she never made an Olympic or world championships team.

In the case of Sydney 2000, that was because Power had her first child that year. She came roaring back in 2001. After a string of brilliant wins in the Victorian winter season and smashing Lisa Ondieki’s course record in the Sydney City to Surf, Power finished third behind the Ethiopian world championships gold and silver medallists in the Goodwill Games 10,000 metres in Brisbane.

All that set up a superb run in the Zatopek when Power skipped through the rain in 31 minutes 26.34 seconds, leaving previous winners Kerryn McCann and Natalie Harvey way behind. It was a commanding performance and remains the women’s Zatopek record.

Craig Mottram, then 21 and on a career trajectory which would peak with a bronze medal in the 5000 metres at the 2005 world championships, won the men’s race from Sydney-based New Zealander Blair Martin and Sisay Bezabeh.

“It's a prestigious race,” Mottram said in explaining why he had decided to make his debut at the longest track distance. “Obviously Emil Zatopek was one of the best of his time. It's a great race and a good one to get out of the way early.

“I'm not going out to run second,” he added prophetically.

Mottram ran again – and won again – in 2003, meaning he could join the select list of three-time winners if he runs, and wins, again in 2011.

We’ve ticked into December, so talk about Christmas is no longer the sole province of the commercially voracious.

So let’s start this ‘all I want for Christmas’ list with a wish for a couple of Olympic 10,000 metres qualifiers on 10 December to celebrate the opening of Melbourne’s new Lakeside Stadium.

The chances that we will get them have just been enhanced with the announcement that Beijing 2008 Olympic bronze medallist Micah Kogo will run the men’s race. Kogo is the sixth-fastest man all-time with his personal best 26:35.63 set in winning at the Van Damme Memorial in Brussels in 2006.

With Kogo – plus a couple more yet to be announced – helping drive the pace, Ben St Lawrence and Craig Mottram will have every opportunity to run the 27:45 Olympic A-standard.

Something similar in the women’s race looks beyond even the most optimistic Christmas wish-list, but if the likes of Emily Birchacek, who had a great run in the Chiba Ekiden Relay, and Jess Trengrove can get down into the 32-minute range there will at least be a platform to build on.

Speaking of Mottram brings me back to one of last year’s wishes. Back then, I was speculating on the comeback prospects of Mottram, dual 400 metres hurdles world champion Jana Pittman and 50km walk world champion Nathan Deakes.

Mottram certainly made a big step back in 2011. Deakes got half-way there, completing his first 50km since Osaka 2007 and then leading the world championships race in Daegu for over 30km before succumbing to hamstring cramps. Pittman took one step forward – beating Lauren Boden in 55.75 in Perth – before taking one back almost immediately.

So it would be great to see all three up and firing again in 2012.

Our 2009 world champions – Steve Hooker and Dani Samuels – were also down on form in 2011, so a return to previous performance levels is also on the wish-list for them. Hooker is approaching – but, crucially, not yet at - that stage of his career at which anything further is a bonus. Samuels, though, the youngest ever world champion in her event, surely has plenty more to give.

Speaking of world champion curses – if there is such a thing, may Sally Pearson avoid it in her build-up to London.

Another high performer who has been on the injured list is national shot put record holder Scott Martin. The big fellow is listed to compete at the Zatopek meeting, along with Dale Stevenson, so let’s hope he gets there and gets going.

Fingers crossed, too, for Ryan Gregson, who managed to progress to the semi-finals of the 1500 in Daegu despite significant injury worries for the second year in a row. Gregson is a major talent, but it is hard to do much if you cannot get to the line fit and in good shape.

What about from an international perspective? The most fervent wish, I guess, is that Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay and, now, Yohan Blake, all get to the line in London fit and running well. On recent history, it is probably a forlorn prospect.

Can Kenenisa Bekele build on his late-2011 return in the long-distance track events, to regain the form and fitness to not just run fast, but also to do it in a championship race. He’ll need to be at his best to withstand Mo Farah, Ibrahim Jeilan, Galen Rupp and whatever new talent comes forward.

Ethiopia also needs an injection of fresh talent, or a revival of the existing talent, to challenge Vivian Cheruiyot and Linet Masai in the women’s distance events.

I hope, too, that David Rudisha can add an Olympic title to his world record and world title in the 800 metres.

I hope that the Polish revival in men’s pole vault and the emergence of a couple of Cuban stars continues.

Finally, let’s hope the wonderful blossoming of marathon talent we have seen through 2011 comes together for a pair of memorable Olympic marathons in London.

If all those Christmas wishes are granted, it is going to be a grand Olympic year.

The late Senator Pat Kennelly was a long-time numbers man and fixer for the Australian Labor Party. Once, on being told his opponents had the numbers in an imminent vote, he replied in his halting stammer: “I d-don’t care who’s got the n-n-numbers, brother, as long as I get to c-c-count the v-v-votes.”

I can identify with Kennelly on several points. First, I had a childhood stammer; second, the ALP Victoria senator was for a long-time chairman of the Albert Park Committee of Management, in which Athletics Victoria’s new home is situated; and, third, I’ve been focused on the numbers myself lately.

It began with Sally Pearson being acclaimed the international female athlete of the year award by the council members of the International Athletics Foundation. Sally was voted number one, in effect.

And, of course, the political year in Australia ended with the minority Labor government effectively picking up an extra ‘number’ through the appointment of an opposition member as parliamentary speaker. That changed the numbers in the national parliament in a significant way (Pat Kennelly would have loved that).

The numbers that had me thinking most, though, were those around the Victorian championships 5000 metres. There were some good numbers, and some bad ones.

Definitely good was the number of competitors. Seventy-six men (out of 86 entries) ran the race – held over four divisions; 18 ran the women’s championship. This compares favourably with the ‘good old days’: the first year I ran there were over 100 entries for a championship run as five heats and a final.

(This matched the experience in the recent New South Wales 3000 metres championships in which 126 men ran in seven grades of the men’s title, and 43 women in three grades.)

Not so good, was the standard at the sharp end of the pyramid. Craig Mottram won the men’s title easily in 13:46.60, comfortably doing what he wanted to do, which was run the sort of pace expected in the Zatopek:10 on 10 December.  Sarah Klein took out the women’s title in 17:02.71.

If you want another interesting number, it was Mottram’s first Victorian title at 5000 metres, though he has a world championships’ bronze medal and six national titles to his name.

Yet another interesting number is the one that was not in evidence – the multiple runners breaking 14 minutes in the only 5000 metres race before the Zatopek.

I remember pre-Zatopek 5000s being stacked with good runners. Traditionally, during the period in which he won four Zatopeks on the trot, Steve Moneghetti would run a ‘bad’ 5000 off his full training load.

‘Bad’ would be anywhere between 13:45 and 13:55, and ‘Mona’ would be fourth or fifth with two or three more runners breaking 14 behind him. Just as traditionally, Moneghetti would go through half-way in the Zatopek a couple of weeks later at the same pace, or faster.

Even as late as 2005, admittedly at the start of a domestic season culminating in a home Commonwealth Games, Louis Rowan ran 13:44.20 and led six others under 13:50. Two years earlier, Mark Tucker ran 13:33.03 in a pre-Zatopek 5000.

A quick check at the ranking lists in pre-2000 years showed that I wasn’t viewing the past through rose-coloured glasses. Anything up to 10 runners would be under 14 minutes in the main pre-Zatopek 5000.

The other notable difference then was club competition that provided two or more opportunities to race 5000 in the lead-up to the Zatopek. Now, we don’t have the races and athletes and coaches seem to prefer to train though most of the pre-Christmas period. Few athletes can come out and run a fast 10,000 without at least one lead-up track race, but plenty seem intent on trying.

The other worrying numbers published recently are the qualifying standards for the national championships. I’ve already written of my bewilderment at Athletics Australia’s decision to separate the Olympic selection trials from the 2012 national championships, the former to be held around the Melbourne World Athletics Challenge meeting, the latter in April.

The numbers are clearly set to restrict field sizes – only seven men have bettered the 1:47.75 required for automatic entry in the men’s 800 in 2011, for example, and three the 21.00 for the 200.

Presumably fields will be filled up to some pre-determined level. Presumably again, AA will follow down the rankings in doing this, but will all athletes who don’t have the automatic qualifying standards know they should enter anyway because they may get in as additional competitors. Any additionals must be those next in line, not those ‘in the know’.

Finally, will all those who run the trials also turn out for the nationals. You’d think those who succeed will be satisfied at having achieved Olympic selection, while those who do not might be tempted to push their claims overseas rather than at a diminished national championships.

I hope enough athletes decide a national title is worth winning in any circumstances. Otherwise we may be looking at numbers even Pat Kennelly would not be bothered counting.

Sally Pearson’s brilliant 2011 was recognised when she was acclaimed the IAAF’s female athlete of the year in Monaco last weekend.

Indeed, the only previous one I can find is Ron Clarke, who is, by glorious coincidence, Sally’s lord mayor up on the Gold Coast. What are the odds of that, do you reckon.

Clarke was named male athlete of the year by Track & Field News magazine in 1965, the first of his great international years. Since then, there has been nothing.

Track &Field News started nominating a men’s athlete of the year in 1959 and a women’s AOY in 1974. The US magazine pretty much had the athlete of the year thing to itself until the IAAF set up its own awards in 1988.

The careers of great Australian female athletes Marjorie Jackson, Shirley Strickland and Betty Cuthbert fell outside the scope of either award. The best Catherine Freeman did was second in 2000. Sally Pearson is therefore in rare, and exalted, company.

The award recognises an outstanding year. Pearson was metres ahead of her rivals at the world championships in Daegu, when it mattered most. She was undefeated in the hurdles but for a fall in the Diamond League meeting in Brussels – so no hurdles rival beat Pearson in a race she finished.

Quality of performance? Pearson’s technical mastery of her event in Daegu was breathtaking. Her winning time of 12.28 was fastest for almost 20 years and made her the fourth-fastest performer of all-time. She approached a once-unapproachable world record (12.21).

Yet some have questioned Pearson’s award, which she won from Kenya’s Vivian Cheruiyot and New Zealand’s Valerie Adams. There have also been mumblings about the men’s award, which went to Usain Bolt ahead of Yohan Blake and last year’s winner David Rudisha.

Cheruiyot had an outstanding year. She won the distance double in Daegu and the world cross-country title. She was undefeated on the track, and her 14:20.87 for 5000 metres in Stockholm made her the third-fastest ever behind Ethiopian duo Tirunesh Dibaba (14:11.15) and Meseret Defar (14:12.88).

Adams went undefeated in 2011 and her gold medal winning throw in Daegu was the longest in the world in 11 years.

Each of the contenders would have been a break-through winner. Australia has never provided a female AOY before, nor has Kenya, nor has New Zealand.

You can argue these things up hill and down dale (and no doubt the judges did). Cheruiyot beat Defar in the Daegu 5000 and again in Brussels. She beat defending champion Linet Masai to win the world 10,000.

On the other hand, it’s hardly the fault of Pearson or Adams that they do not have like events in which they can double.

In reality, there was an argument for each of the three female finalists as number one. What’s less clear, however, is the manner in which the IAAF makes its choice, so, let’s explain.

First, a panel of eight experts selects 10 finalists. Then, an e-mail vote is conducted to select three finalists. Those eligible to vote are IAAF and IAF (International Athletics Foundation) Council Members; IAAF member federations; IAAF committee & commission members; IAAF meeting directors; IAAF ambassadors; athletes’ representatives (i.e. agents); top athletes; members of the international press; IAAF staff members.

It is a pretty diverse group, with a high degree of subjectivity, you would think. In recent years, too, the IAAF has allowed a public vote on the three finalists.

Finally, the IAAF Council selects the winner.

Track & Field News takes a more rigorous approach, compiling the votes of 30 experts on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis. 

Interestingly, though, results for the two polls show a surprising degree of correlation agreeing on 17 out of 20 winners from 2001 to 2010 (T&FN is yet to announce its 2011 AOYs). Only in 2003, when the IAAF went for Hicham El Guerrouj and Hestrie Cloete and the magazine for Felix Sanchez and Maria Mutola, and in 2008, when the IAAF had Yelena Isinbayeva as top woman and T&FN went for Tirunesh Dibaba, has there been disagreement.

The men’s situation this year was even less clear than the women’s. The IAAF opted for Bolt who perhaps could have been marked down more harshly for his false start loss in the Daegu final. But he came back to win the 200 and set the fastest time in the world for the 100 before season’s end.

Blake was great in Daegu, but he lost at the Jamaican champs to Asafa Powell and did not beat Bolt when he ran the world’s second-fastest 200 in Brussels.

Rudisha lost only his final race of the season, won his first world championships, and had the year’s fastest time in the 800. He had the strongest case for AOY in my view, but it was not overwhelming.

As ever, lists promote argument and discussion, which can only be good for the sport. Let’s see what the T&FN ranking bring.

In the meantime, congratulations to Sally Pearson – a rare and worthy winner indeed.

EZ 1961 

The Emil Zatopek 10,000 metres is one of the longest, continually run, track distance races in the world.

Inaugurated in 1961 as the 10,000 metres championship of the Victorian Marathon Club, ‘the Zatopek’ had its 50th running last year and now, in 2011, its 50th birthday.

The men’s Zatopek has been staged annually since. The Zatopek has only one peer when it comes to non-national championship 10,000 metre track races: Kobe, in Japan, has staged a men’s 10,000 at the Hyogo Relays every year since 1952.

These days, the Zatopek is commonly host to the national title and is always a key component of selection for Australian teams to Olympic, and Commonwealth, Games and world championships.

The only tangible reward to the winner, however, is a rudimentary trophy made out of a red-gum railway sleeper. Geoff Warren, one of the early VMC members designed it and Les Perry, a foundation member, described it as “solid, tough and durable, as appropriate to such an event, and to perpetuate the name and contribution to world and Olympic sport by this greatest of all distance runners.”

Percy Cerutty, Les Perry, Bert Gardiner, Gordon Stanley, Bob Prentice, Fred Lester – the men who founded the VMC were men of stubborn endurance. The Zatopek:10, the race they named in honour of their hero, Emil Zatopek, has proven to be as tough and resilient as its founders.

50 years ago: the first ‘Zatopek’, 18 December, 1961

The first of Ron Clarke’s five Zatopek wins was not what the world would come to know as a typical Ron Clarke race. The future world record breaker trailed Tony Cook throughout the second half of the race before his final sprint took him to the lead 50 metres from the finish and a narrow win, 30 minutes 36 seconds to 30:38.

Trevor Vincent was third in 30:56.

From little things . . . . Within three years, Clarke was the world record holder – setting his record in the 1963 Zatopek race – and an Olympic bronze medallist; Vincent was the Commonwealth Games 3000 metres steeplechase gold medallist and a 1964 Olympian; and Cook was eighth in the 1964 Olympic 10,000 final.

All of which must have been some consolation to Bruce Russell of Mentone, who finished fourth in the first Zatopek race. At least he could say it took three good ‘uns to beat him.

40 years ago: the 1971 Zatopek, 20 December

The 1971 Zatopek:10 was held at Melbourne University track. Rarely has the old motto, a healthy mind in a healthy body, been more apt.

World marathon record holder Derek Clayton pulled out two laps into the race with a calf injury. He failed the ‘healthy body’ test.

First across the line was Tony Benson, but he was neither a financial member of the Victorian Marathon Club, nor had he put his entry in on time. He definitely failed the ‘healthy mind’ criterion.

So the race went to Tony Williams, who had finished 17 seconds behind Benson’s 29 minutes 29 seconds. Trevor Vincent was second and Arch Sansonetti, who was also a talented cyclist, third.

Clayton tore round the first lap in 64 seconds before feeling a tightening in his left calf and stopping.

“Blast it . . . Oh, blast. It’s the story of my life. Here we go again,” Clayton was quoted. The second bit may be accurate – Clayton sustained numerous injuries as he punished his body with heavy training loads - but thinking of the feisty and straight-talking Clayton “blast, oh blast” may have been tidied up a touch.

Benson went on to make the 1972 Olympic team. His other consolation is that he may be the most talented distance athlete in Australian history never to win the Zatopek. The other claimant for that distinction would possibly be Chris Wardlaw, a 1976 Olympic 10,000 finalist. Interestingly, both Benson (Barcelona 1992) and Wardlaw (Sydney 2000) were Olympic head coaches.

Williams went on to win several Victorian, and one national, title at 5000 metres.

Interclub competition is the neglected child of Australian athletics. Occasionally we need a reminder of what an asset it is.

My memory was given just such a jolt recently when I went searching for a quote about interclub which I had found while researching The Landy Era.

The quote came from an article in The Argus, the Melbourne daily which ceased publication in 1957. Fired up with pre-Melbourne 1956 Olympic fever, the paper had sent a columnist down to check out the opening round of the 1953-54 inter-club athletic season.

Describing the “weekly, non-stop athletic carnival,” the writer asked readers: 

“Imagine, if you can, trying to watch: 

“A gruelling finish to a mile race; A mad dash over a 120-yd flight of hurdles; Breathtaking pole-vaults; Heroic, well-timed pole-vaults; Prodigious flights by the long-jump men.

“It happens, right here in Melbourne,” our columnist assured us. “And at 1:30pm today, it will begin again.”

Acclaiming the “scope and organisation of the Victorian Amateur Athletic Association’s weekly interclub contests”, our scribe continued:

“No city, anywhere in the world, conducts such complex, regular meetings, with so many athletes in action at the same time.”

(You can access the whole article, complete with pictures, at http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/23310897 .)

Apart from minor quibbles - the correspondent being so excited he mentioned pole vault twice – the picture is substantially the same today. Oh, and there’s women, too. Back then, women’s competitions, indeed women’s associations, were separate. If readers of The Argus wanted to see women back in 1953, they either sought out reports of the women’s competitions, or turned to other, more salacious sections of the newspaper.

There is one other substantive difference, too, and I didn’t have to go to the archives to bring that one to mind. The prompt came later the very same day when Tamsyn Manou (Lewis) happened to come into the same cafe at which a group of us were having lunch.

Three days of warm spring weather in Melbourne had been replaced by the sort of classical, grey day, accompanied by persistent drizzle, which gives our city a poor reputation climate-wise.

“Just in time for interclub tomorrow,” Tamsyn remarked, a reminder not just of Melbourne’s mercurial spring weather but also of the fact she is a regular competitor in club competition. It’s part of her training.

Back in 1953, any visitor to interclub would have seen some of the country’s best athletes. John Landy ran the mile on the day The Argus reporter attended. The Monday paper, two days later (no Sunday editions then) carried two back-page reports of the competition along with a picture of a competitor in the hop, step and jump (triple jump).

There was a further report of a national junior record in women’s high jump in Brisbane. That made three stories on athletics on the back page of a major metropolitan daily. Oh, happy day.

In fact, all the way through to the 1980s, regular club competition was part of the diet of all Australia’s international stars. Landy, Betty Cuthbert, Marlene Matthews, Herb Elliott, Pam Kilborn, Graham Crouch, Raelene Boyle – you’d be likely to see all of them out in their club colours. As for Ron Clarke, his racing program for Glenhuntly was similar to his international program – prodigious.

Nor was it just club competition. There were interstate matches – Victoria v New South Wales, Victoria v South Australia – as well as a surprising number of invitational meetings. The sponsored international meeting is not a recent phenomenon.

Athletes did not ignore their training. The training bloc is likewise not a recent invention, not even the high altitude training bloc. A report of a half-mile race won by Ralph Doubell mentions that he had just returned from four weeks’ training at Falls Creek.

No, the model up until fairly recently was simply that athletes competed more often. Now, the model seems to be one in which competition is something that gets in the way of training.

It’s a mistake to over-simplify comparisons. There’s also a danger that, in looking back, we tend to examine what champions did and try to apply it across the board.

Arguably, though, our very best performed athletes still do compete often. Cathy Freeman certainly did; Sally Pearson had a full domestic season this year, as did Mitch Watt.

It didn’t do any of them any harm. Maybe there’s a lot to be said for competing more often. Melbourne’s (and Sydney’s, and Brisbane’s) weekly, non-stop athletic carnival is still running.

As many an opponent found, Cathy Freeman was a very hard person to catch.

In a sense, it was a belated recognition of a status long since awarded by most Australians. From her laps of honour with the national and aboriginal flags in Victoria, Canada, after winning the 200 and 400 metres at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, through her epic losing battle with Marie-Jose Perec in the Atlanta Olympic 400 metres final and her two world championships gold medals, to the final climactic moment in Sydney – they had long since associated her with heroic deeds.

Fans sometimes accord legend’s status too freely – how often is the match-winning goal or game-saving mark or tackle hailed with the words: “(insert player name here), you legend!”

Similarly, those who exhibit sporadic brilliance, or endearing characteristics seen as embodying the spirit of their sport or team, can be too readily elevated to legend standing.

But rarely are fans wrong in recognising and acclaiming ‘legends’ those they have given more considered reflection. Never under-estimate the collective wisdom of those with an emotional connection to a sport.

Bodies such as the Sport Australia Hall of Fame must follow a more rigorous and more consistent process before, usually, arriving at the same outcome.

So it was with Freeman, who was elevated as the 2011 legend when most of the audience had had her there since 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999 or, if none of those, since 2000. As Bruce McAvaney (who else?) took Freeman through her career it was amazing how the goose bumps still came watching her wins in Victoria, Athens, Seville and, especially, Sydney 2000.

It was also a moment to reflect on the power of television. How fortunate we are to have available the brilliant footage of the past 20-30 years. How great would it be to see the feats of Jackson, Strickland, Landy and Elliott in such vivid detail.

Freeman becomes the seventh track and field athlete to be accorded legend status. For a sport which, justifiably in this writer’s view, sometimes sees itself as under-rated, it is an impressive number, almost double any other sport.

Tennis is next with four, each of swimming and AFL has three.

Athletics’ ‘magnificent seven’ are Freeman, Edwin Flack, Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, Shirley (Strickland) De La Hunty, John Landy, Betty Cuthbert and Herb Elliott. Tennis has Margaret Court, Evonne (Goolagong) Cawley, Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall. Swimming’s legends are Dawn Fraser, Murray Rose and Shane Gould.

Cathy Freeman is these days Catherine Murch. She, and husband James, have just become the proud parents of baby daughter Ruby Anne Susie. Her passion is now channelled into the Catherine Freeman Foundation which works on closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians through education. The focus so far has been on Queensland’s Palm Island, the fourth-most disadvantaged community in Australia (according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures), where Freeman’s mother and grand-parents lived.

Sport Australia is an umbrella organisation for all Australian sports. Its 33 legends reflect this, representing 15 sports in all. Looking at the list, and the nominees and award winners on the night, it must be said that SA does an excellent job of acknowledging excellence and achievement across the board.

The main annual award is ‘The Don Award’ named after the first inductee into the Hall of Fame, Sir Donald Bradman. ‘The Don’ honours the current athlete who, by their achievements and example over the previous 12 months, has done most to inspire the nation.

Sally Pearson, the 100 metres hurdles world champion, US women’s open tennis champion Sam Stosur, and swimming’s sprint world champion James Magnussen would all have been worthy winners, but it was a bad year to be anyone other than Cadel Evans. The man who was responsible for more sleep deprivation than anyone else in Australian history was a runaway winner with his historic Tour de France victory.

Evans’ performance and Freeman’s in Sydney 2000 were also enshrined in the Hall of Fame as great sporting moments.

The seven inductees into the Hall of Fame included former Sun News Pictorial (and then Herald Sun) journalist Judy Joy Davies (the others were cricketers Glenn McGrath and Belinda Clark, triathlete Greg Welch, basketball player, coach and administrator Lorraine Landon, boxer Kosta Tszyu and surfer Layne Beachley).

A former Olympic and Empire Games swimmer, Judy Joy (as she was pretty well universally known) covered athletics, swimming and other ‘minor’ sports for 34 years.

I’m not aware - and I’m not going to risk spoiling things by asking – of Judy Joy ever covering Australian Rules football. In a lifetime reporting sport in football-mad Melbourne, that would be some kind of record.

Geoff Watt did all those things, and more - not bad for a self-professed “ordinary mediocre runner . . . who (is) flat out running a mile in four minutes 40 seconds.

“The AAU will never give you a guernsey,” Watt wrote of Australia’s national governing body, the forerunner to Athletics Australia, “and yet it is possible to know the thrill of international competition and the fellowship of the runners of many nations.”

Watt began his trip early in 1959. He returned to Australia in 1961, taking up his professional life as an optometrist. He married and had four children, one of whom became an Olympic champion.

He also went for a run on Mt Erica, in Victoria’s Gippsland region, one early spring night in 1969 without telling anyone. He died from exposure near the summit.

“I just don’t understand it,” one searcher said. “Why did he go up there at that time of night without telling anyone and without any warm clothing.”

Probably because – as far as you can tell from this distance - that was the sort of thing Geoff Watt had done all his life. He had suffered snow-blindness during his descent from the peak of Kilimanjaro, “and spent two dreadful days stumbling down the slopes to safety.”

Far from being salutary, the experience, Watt wrote, “had a profound affect on me and for a while I was quite fearless.”

I never knew Geoff Watt, but I knew his story. He was well-known on the Melbourne running scene. The night he disappeared, one of Melbourne’s harrier clubs was having an end-of-winter-season party. When word came through that Watt was missing many of those present jumped into their cars and headed off to join the search.

I was reminded about Watt when I met his daughter, Kathy Watt, at this year’s Melbourne Track Classic. She asked me if I could help publicise a memorial run in her father’s name, which I was more than happy to do. It’s on in Warragul this year on 16 October.

Kathy Watt was an accredited photographer at the meeting and also at the world championships in Daegu. She is better-known, however, as the Barcelona 1992 Olympic cycling road race champion. It was a shock gold medal at the time, won in a style of which her father would have heartily approved.

Kathy Watt went off the front of the bunch with a lap to go. The peloton, including the prohibitive favourite, Jeannie Longo of France, judged that the Australian had gone too early, was riding solo, and would soon come back.

Longo wrong-o: Watt kept right on going to win by 20 seconds.

Like her father, Kathy Watt was a runner. A good one, too, but injuries eventually convinced her that she would be better off in an event in which her feet where not hitting the ground. She turned to cycling. Where once she had run everywhere, now Watt rode everywhere. The sight of Kathy Watt pedalling furiously around the streets of inner Melbourne at that time was a familiar one.

As, indeed, would have been the sight of Geoff Watt pretty well anywhere around the world from 1959 to 1961.

You can read a full account of Geoff Watt’s journey by clicking on the ‘Geoff Watt’ tag at www.geoffwattrun.com , including his memorable injunction to a friend indentified merely as ‘Bluey:

“To Bluey – along the way I found two things of importance – To eat well and to sleep dry – All else is profit!”

The way took Geoff Watt initially to the 1959 Boston marathon, where he finished tenth in 2:34:37. Watt sported a beard at that stage and his arrival in Boston – by steamer to Panama, plane to Miami and on a car delivery job to Boston – was a sure-fire attention-grabber. A Boston Globe columnist profiled Watt under the heading: “The Bearded Galloper from Down Under.”

From Boston, Watt toured the rest of North America and Canada. He then hopped across the Pacific to Asia, running marathons in Korea and at Fukuoka in Japan. From there it was through the Middle East to Europe, Britain, the 1960 Rome Olympics and the Kosice marathon. While in England, Watt finished fourth in the London-Brighton ultra of around 54 miles.

It was in Kosice, one of the original and great marathons on the old international circuit, that Watt met Abebe Bikila. On the African leg of the trip, Watt trained with the 1960 and 1964 Olympic marathon champion at Bikila’s base outside Addis Ababa.

Africa, the final continent of Watt’s journey, also brought the ascent of Kilimanjaro and a tenth place finish in the Comrade’s Marathon. From Durban, Watt finally made his way home to Australia.

Which brings me back to the Geoff Watt Memorial Fun Run. It’s on in Warragul on 16 October and, if the prospect of a half-marathon through Gippsland’s rolling hills is too daunting, there is a 10k, a 5k, or 2.5k.

It’s the 41^st running of the event, revived after a hiatus in 2010.

The marathon distance is 42.195km, so the revival is entirely appropriate. From what I’ve learned of him, Geoff Watt was not the sort of bloke to stop at the 40km mark in a marathon, so it is entirely fitting that his memorial race should go the distance, too.