Ron Clarke

Died: June 17, 2015

RON Clarke, who died on Queensland's Gold Coast last week, was a legend who redefined what was possible in middle distance athletics. His catalogue of world records included five in 40 days, among 12 in 1965. This is unmatched, before or since. Yet he was for long reviled in Australia as a failure, because he never won a major championship title.

On his return to home after claiming 10,000 metres bronze at the 1964 Olympics, an airport baggage handler greeted him with the inquiry: "What happened to you, you b******."

It was years before he was taken to his nation's heart, and he was still sufficiently scarred by the experience to recall it in his final interview with this paper, shortly before his 77th birthday last summer.

Clarke's final championship was the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in 1970 where Scotland's Lachie Stewart knocked more than 20 seconds from his best to out-sprint Clarke for gold. The Australian had held the world record for five years and was reckoned invincible.

Clarke guffawed on recalling the occasion last year: "With about 200 metres to go the crowd went wild, and I thought, 'What a wonderful crowd, this Scottish crowd. What a wonderful reception they're giving me'."

Only when he heard Lachie's footsteps did he realise the cheers were for the Scot who was about to overtake him.

When we spoke of a friend who claimed to be Clarke's greatest fan in Scotland, he said: "I thought Lachie was my greatest Scottish fan . . . Tell him I bitterly resent what he did in Edinburgh!" The Aussie was unable to suppress another guffaw, though that defeat had brought his fourth successive Commonwealth Games silver.

Clarke's prodigy cannot be overstated. He set 19 world records in all, one of them unratified because of athletics' bureaucracy, and one as a junior for the mile. He was first man under 13 minutes for 5000m, and first inside 28 for 10k (just four days apart). His senior world marks ranged from two miles to 20,000 metres and the one-hour run - a range surpassed only by Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie (two miles to the marathon).

Clarke lowered the 5000m world mark four times, by 18.4 seconds in total, and the 10k by 38.8, in three attempts. On the last occasion it was by 35 seconds, the biggest in the history of the sport. Gebrselassie bettered the 5k record by a total of 19.03 seconds, and the 10k by a more modest 15.33.

Clarke's wife, Helen, kept Ron's feet on the ground. Having broken his first world record he had to walk home because she had the car. Helen was hosting a party. He told her he had broken the world record. Helen said: "That's nice," then told him to pass round the sandwiches.

He confounded prevailing tradition in the 1960s by demonstrating that endurance runners could race hard and often against the very best opposition. He changed the sport with his trademark, courageous front-running. It won him enormous admiration - but no Olympic gold.

Most memorably, at altitude in Mexico City, though world 10,000m record holder, he faded from the lead group to sixth over the final 600m, more than two minutes outside his world best. He collapsed and was given oxygen. Later it emerged he had damaged his heart and required surgery. He never broke another world record.

Admiration ultimately manifested itself in a remarkable gift from Emil Zatopek, who made a unique clean sweep of the 5k, 10k, and marathon at the 1952 Olympics.

The Czech invited Clarke to run in Prague, and the Aussie loved telling how Zatopek would park illegally and police would not only turn a blind eye, but would park his car. "When I was leaving the country, Zata came on to the plane with me and had a little parcel wrapped in brown paper tied with string. I had the front seat and he handed it to me as we said goodbye.

"I didn't know whether I was smuggling contraband or whatever. I thought I'd better wait until I was through customs in England before I opened it, and if something was discovered I could say I knew nothing about it: that it was just something a friend gave to me. But I lost my nerve."

He went into the toilet, opened the packet, and sat down on the seat and wept when he saw an Olympic gold medal.

Clarke received the Order of Australia and MBE, but treasures this medal above all. "I was just incredibly honoured, and it was a story I thought should be shared," he told me. So the medal is in the Gold Coast Sports Hall of Fame. "I think that's the best place for it," he said.

With it is Zatopek's note which acompanied the package: "Not out of friendship, but because you deserve it."

Clarke lit the Melbourne Olympic flame as 19-year-old world junior mile record-holder - stoically proceeding despite being badly burned by sparks. He quit to qualify as an accountant before turning seriously to running, and later became a successful businessman. He was mayor of the Gold Coast for eight years, but lost his daughter to cancer, and with her, his motivation. "I decided not to stand for a third four-year term," he said last year.

He brokered Gold Coast hosting the 2018 Commonwealths and was a noted environmentalist. When accused of building a sports facility on toxic waste ground, he sought a $75,000 settlement. When it was rejected, he sued and was awarded $1m.

Clarke died prematurely of heart and kidney failure after a short illness, aged 78. He is survived by his wife and two sons.

DOUG GILLON