‘The most uncompromising run ever seen’ – Bayi’s world record singlet enters MOWA

Sadly, the Queen Elizabeth II Stadium in Christchurch is no longer with us. Devastated by the earthquake that struck the largest city on New Zealand’s South Island in 2011, the arena was demolished in 2012.

It was there, on the afternoon of 2 February 1974, that Filbert Bayi produced the stunning gun-to-tape 1500m performance that sent shock waves reverberating around the track and field world.

“The most devastating piece of front running by any athlete in middle distance events,” the BBC television commentator David Coleman reflected in the aftermath of Bayi’s victory in the men’s 1500m final at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in New Zealand’s Garden City.

The 20-year-old Tanzanian, who forged his speed endurance herding cows in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro and running eight miles a day to and from school, achieved his breath-taking tour de force wearing the national singlet, shorts and race number that, 60 years on, he has kindly donated to the Museum of World Athletics (MOWA).

Bayi did not just destroy Jim Ryun’s seven-year-old world record figures of 3:33.1; he left his rivals as distant also-rans in a performance Mel Watman described in the Athletics 74 annual as “the most uncompromising run ever seen in a major international 1500m championship”.

To many of the leading lights in what Brendan Foster called “the greatest ever mass race at 1500m”, it came as a bolt from the blue.

Foster himself was part of the illustrious cast that day. A week earlier, the two-mile world record-holder had been edged out in an epic duel for the Commonwealth 5000m crown with Ben Jipcho, the Kenyan clocking 13:14.4 and the Briton 13:14.6 to go second and third on the world all-time list, behind Emiel Puttemans’ 13:13.0.

Foster wound up a distant seventh in the 1500m final, a whopping 5.4 seconds behind Bayi – in 3:37.6, a British record.

The stacked field also included Jipcho, who was gunning for a hat-trick of golds, having also won the 3000m steeplechase.

A decade older than Bayi, the 30-year-old Kenyan had first-hand knowledge of the daring tactic the Tanzanian had been attempting to perfect since suffering the disappointment of being knocked out in the heats of the 1500m and the 3000m steeplechase at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

On the European circuit in the summer of 1973, Bayi tried to burn off his rivals by setting a scorching pace. In a stunning mile race in Stockholm, he zipped through 400m in 52.5, 800m in 1:51.0 and 1200m in 2:52.0, forging a lead of 80 metres, before folding in the final 200 metres.

He was caught and passed in the last 50 metres by Jipcho, whose winning time of 3:52.0 ranked second on the all-time list behind Ryun’s 3:51.1.

‘I’ll surprise you people’

Bayi had finished just 0.6 behind that day, yet most of the 35,000 crowd in Christchurch, and the other leading players in the race, expected another capitulation when he set off at a similarly devilish pace.

Passing 400m in 54.9 and 800m in 1:52.2, the young Tanzanian was some 15 metres clear at the bell, glancing over his right shoulder to check for possible danger.

With 200 metres to go, Jipcho made an effort to close the gap but was overtaken 120 metres out by John Walker, the emerging New Zealander who had beaten Bayi to bronze in the 800m final, and by Rod Dixon, the Kiwi who claimed Olympic 1500m bronze in Munich in 1972.

The crowd roared as the home duo charged off the final bend, but Bayi had too much in hand.

Glancing over his shoulder again halfway down the home straight, he noted Walker closing on him but applied his foot on the pedal sufficiently to keep two steps ahead.

“I had another gear if I needed it,” Bayi maintained, after crossing the line in 2:32.2 (2:32.16, with electric timing) – 0.9 inside the world record.

Walker was also inside Ryun’s global figures, with 2:32.5 in second place. Jipcho snatched third place in 3:33.2, breaking Keino’s Kenyan record, with the tiring Dixon fourth in 3:33.9 and fifth placed Graham Crouch clocking 3:34.2 to eclipse Herb Elliott’s Australian record.

“Nobody was talking about me before the race,” Bayi reflected. “I was the underdog. I said to myself, ‘Ok, don’t talk about me; I’ll surprise you people’.

“I thought I needed to do the same thing I had done in 1973 at the African Games, when I beat Kipchoge Keino. I made my move from the beginning and people thought they would catch me.

“I saw John Walker was coming behind me in the home straight and I just accelerated. I said, ‘Ok, catch me if you can’.”

Fittingly, Bayi’s autobiography, which details not just his running career but his life as an inspiring educator in his homeland and as leading sports administrator, echoes the challenge he issued that day: “Catch me if you can.”

Having fallen short, Walker was magnanimous in defeat. “Filbert ran an extraordinary race,” he said. “I was coming from behind but I was never going to catch him.”

Tanzania’s first ever Olympic medallist

In May the following year, Bayi broke Ryun’s world record for the mile, running 3:51.0 in the Jamaican capital, Kingston. Thereafter, however, he was overtaken by fate, and by Walker, in the battle for global middle-distance supremacy.

Injury cut short his European season in 1975 and Walker cut down his mile record, pushing through the 3:50 barrier with a time of 3:49.4 in Gothenburg.

The hotly-anticipated showdown between the Tanzanian and the New Zealander at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal was scuppered by an African boycott, though at the time of the Games Bayi was suffering from malaria while Walker strode to 1500m gold.

Bayi continued to be dogged by injury and illness but he earned Commonwealth 1500m silver behind England’s Dave Moorcroft in Edmonton in 1978, before reverting to the 3000m steeplechase for the 1980 Olympics.

In the final he was overhauled just before the final water jump by the muscular Pole Bronislaw Malinowski but was happy to hold on for silver in 8:12.5, proud to be his country’s first ever Olympic medallist.

The great front runner held his 1500m world record until 1979.

Fittingly, it fell to a devotee who had adopted Bayi’s bold tactics after watching his televised Christchurch masterclass as a star-struck teenager.

Sebastian Coe took particular pride in shaving 0.1 off the Tanzanian’s time with his 3:32.1 run in Zurich.

“It was one of the best world records on the books,” said Coe, “and it was the hardest of the 11 I broke.”

Bayi’s singlet, bib number and shorts can be viewed in glorious 3D in the Museum of World Athletics (MOWA).

Simon Turnbull for World Athletics