ACHIEVER
An intense fire
Secret of an unbeaten champion

By Steve Douglas

HERB Elliott was at his peak, the Olympic 1500 metres champion of 1960 with the prospect of many more honours and medals to come, when he announced his retirement in 1962. He was 24. The public couldn’t understand it.

They didn’t know Herb — the intelligent, self-analytical son of a road cyclist who was constantly wanting to better himself. He retired from athletics and went to Cambridge University to study.

"When I look back," he said, "the enthusiasm I had was incredible. Nothing would take me off my path at all. And it has got to be like this — an intense fire — if you are going to get anywhere.

"But now if I go on, I feel that I’d only be repeating something I’ve already done before.

"I feel a bit like a fellow who goes for a walk and he takes one step after another and eventually finds himself on the top of the Everest and he realises that he has left a tremendous amount of ground behind him. It is most unfortunate that once he gets to the very peak of the Everest, the only way he can go is down."

Herb, a big man and a proud man, didn’t want to go down. He wanted to stay on top. So he took up flying ... another mountain for him to climb.

Herb was born on February 25, 1938, in Perth, western Australia. Like most Australian boys, young Elliott was an outdoor sportsman. He ran, played football, boxed and cycled. Three times he broke his nose — once in a cycle accident, once at football and the other time when his brother jabbed him with his fist.

That slightly crooked nose was the Herb Elliott trademark around the world’s running stadiums.

His father bought a furniture shop and moved house to a small community 23 miles from the school Herb attended. Most days Herb travelled to school by bus, but some days he ran half the way to break the monotony.

Development as an athlete

Elliott’s parents moved again, to a house near the Indian Ocean and overlooking some sandhills. Those sandhills played an important part in his development as an athlete. He used to run up and down them, building up his strength for races against his father and school friends.

At college, Elliott was an outstanding performer at everything he tried. He was captain of the hockey team, rowed in the school first eight, was a member of the shooting team, played tennis and was also a pianist.

But it was running that claimed most of his time. "I was best at it, so I decided to concentrate on the thing I was good at," he said.

While at college, he met Percy Wells Cerutty — the man who turned him from a good schoolboy miler into the world’s best. Cerutty, a white-haired, 70-year-old fitness fanatic had such unusual training ideas that his critics called him "a nut."

Cerutty told young Elliott: "Within two years, you will run a mile in four minutes." The schedule was thrown out of gear when Herb broke two bones in right foot when a piano fell on it.

Rekindled enthusiasm

Unable to train, his life meandered along. He was working for his father in the furniture business. In private life, he was enjoying himself at parties. His father, who had been a dedicated sportsman himself, was disappointed with his son.

The 1956 Olympic Games were held in Melbourne. The Elliott family went to watch the games on the first day. The 10,000-metre race between Vladimir Kuts of the USSR and Gordon Pirie (Great Britain) rekindled Elliott’s enthusiasm in athletics again.

"I decided I must try to develop my talent the best way I could. Not that I ever dreamed that I could be in Kut’s class, but somewhere in the subconscious, I felt perhaps I could get somewhere near it.

"I remembered that passage in the Gospel where the fellow was given a talent and he went and buried it. If you’ve got talents, you should use them. I wanted to excel at something as Kuts had done."

Australian championship

Elliott went to Cerutty’s Portesa Camp, running up and down the sand dunes and living the healthy outdoor life which Cerutty said was essential to the young athlete. Within six weeks, he won the Australian mile championship in 4 minutes and 4 seconds, beating Merv Lincoln.

He went to work in Melbourne and took a job as a clerk. To save money on fares, he walked part of the way to work every day. In January, 1958, he became the youngest runner ever to break four minutes in the mile. He was 19.

He travelled abroad and won the US mile championship in a time only seven-tenths of a second outside Derek Ibbotson’s world record. The Empire Games at Cardiff in 1958 was his next target and he won both the half-mile and mile events, reversing his half-mile defeat at the hands of Britain’s Brian Hewson in the AAA championships.

A few days later, he went over to Dublin to run in an invitation mile in a field that included the Irish Olympic champion Ron Delany, Merv Lincoln and Murray Halberg.

New world record

Elliott shattered them all, winning easily in a new world record time of 3 minutes, 54.5 seconds — 2.7 seconds better than the previous record. It was just under two years since Elliott saw Kuts beat Pirie and decided that athletics was the career for him and the way to fulfil his talents.

Two years later in Rome, Elliott won the Olympic 1500 title in record time. It was to be his last big race. He was married now to Anne, a girl from his hometown, Perth. He also had a son and responsibilities.

Winning cups and medals and glory wouldn’t keep them, especially if he stayed a clerk. So at the age of 24, he gave it all up and went to university to study.

He can take satisfaction in the fact that he was never beaten in a mile race. There aren’t many sportsmen who have the good sense to retire unbeaten... but Herb Elliott was an unusual sportsman.

(First Features)