Clarke’s world record rampage

It came as a surprise to Ron Clarke himself that his wondrous year of world record wrecking began on the grassy slopes of North Hobart Oval 60 years ago today.

Over the course of 10 momentous months in 1965, the majestic Australian rampaged through the world record book, setting 11 global marks in eight different distance events.

In naming Clarke the undisputed Athlete of the Year, Track and Field News’ managing editor Dick Drake proclaimed: “No athlete in a single year has destroyed so exhaustively and so repeatedly so many world records.

“The Australian became history’s greatest all-round distance runner from three miles through to the one hour run.”

Clarke was 27 at the start of his annus mirabilis, his year of wonders.

He was driven by “the cataclysmic effect” on his running career, as he put it, of his experience at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in the October of 1964.

Having claimed the 10,000m and six mile world records in one fell swoop in his home city of Melbourne in December 1963, Clarke started favourite for gold in the 25-lap event in the Japanese capital – only to be stunned by the ‘meteor’ of Billy Mills’ flying finish, finishing a deflated third behind the unheralded US Marine and Tunisia’s Mohammed Gammoudi.

Ninth in both the 5000m and the marathon in Tokyo, Clarke started to make his mark on the road to redemption before 1964 was out, slicing 2.4 seconds off New Zealander Murray Halberg’s three mile world record with a time of 13:07.6 in Melbourne on 3 December.

As the new year dawned, his sights turned to the 5000m and the world record figures of 13:35.0, which had stood since 1957 to the Ukrainian Soviet Vladimir Kuts.

As Clarke recounted in his autobiography The Unforgiving Minute: “It seemed incredible to me that only one runner had ever held the world records for 5000m, 10,000m and six miles concurrently, and that I had only the 5000m record to gain to equal Taisto Maki’s achievement.”

In his quest to match Maki, the Finnish shepherd who broke through the 30-minute barrier for 10,000m, Clarke lined up a series of 5000m races in January and February 1965.

The first was at Eden Park, Auckland, hallowed home of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby union team.

In preparation for a European tour in the middle of the year, Clarke chose to take a night flight from Melbourne on the eve of the race. Given his lack of sleep, and the rain and wind that greeted him at the stadium, he decided to concentrate on getting the better of Halberg and Bill Baillie rather than chase Kuts’ record. He prevailed in 13:52.0, almost lapping the two Kiwis.

‘One of the dullest races imaginable’

Then, on the Saturday morning of 16 January, came the 5000m in Hobart, capital of Tasmania, the island state at Australia’s southern tip.

“As the grass track was on a slope, a record again seemed improbable,” Clarke recalled.

He arrived the evening before the race, staying at the New Sydney Hotel, whose owner offered free accommodation to athletes on the condition that they had a drink with each of his regulars.

“In the bar that night, there were 12 regulars,” Clarke recounted in The Unforgiving Minute. “I had a sarsaparilla with each. Other than that, there is little to record. In the morning, I ran the second mile fairly slowly and sped over the last mile.

“When the time of 13:34.6 was announced – a world record – I was amazed. It was one of the dullest races imaginable.”

Underwhelmed though he might have been, the sarsaparilla-fuelled Melburnian had emulated Maki, a protégé of the peerless Paavo Nurmi, and launched his grand world record fest.

For the record, Clarke’s time in Hobart was not quite as swift as it had been announced but 13:34.7, rounded up further to the next 0.2 under the rules of the time to 13:34.8.

‘Dismayed’ by the Rolling Stones

The authoritative Australian track and field writer Len Johnson noted in a column on the Runner’s Tribe website that it was quite probably the last world record set on a grass track.

He also revealed that, because of the slope on the North Hobart Oval, which had to be negotiated in a downward direction 13 times and upward only 12, Clarke thought the record might not even be ratified.

Hence his appearance in another 5000m race in Auckland on 1 February, this time at Western Springs Stadium.

Despite an unscheduled stop-over in Wellington – “dismayed” to find the Rolling Stones on the same flight (“it was not very peaceful”) – Clarke further reduced the record to 13:33.6.

He obliterated it in Los Angeles in June, clocking 13:25.8 in the Compton Invitational meeting, a prelude to his stunning 10,000m run at the Bislett Games in Oslo the following month.

Just four days after becoming the first man to crack 13 minutes for three miles, with 12:52.4 at the White City Stadium in London, Clarke smashed through the 28-minute barrier for 25 laps, his jaw-dropping time of 27:39.4 knocking 36.2 seconds off his own record.

Cruelly, the supreme record-breaker was destined never to claim an Olympic title, almost losing his life when he collapsed in a state of unconsciousness after finishing sixth in the 10,000m final in the dangerously thin air of Mexico City in 1968.

He did, however, famously receive the gift of an Olympic gold medal, courtesy of the admiring Emil Zatopek. And, though he lost his life in 2015, at the age of 78, the legend of Ron Clarke and his barrier-breaking distance running deeds lives on.

In 2023 the official status of global track and field ‘Legend’ was posthumously bestowed upon the great Australian with the award of a World Athletics Heritage Plaque that is on permanent display at Glenhuntly Athletics Club in suburban Melbourne. https://worldathletics.org/heritage/plaque/news/heritage-plaques-awarded-clarke-landy-atfca-journal-bathurst

Simon Turnbull for World Athletics

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Ron Clarke’s 1965 world record schedule
16 January – 5000m 13:34.8, Hobart
1 February – 5000m 13:33.6, Auckland
3 March – 10 miles 47:12.8, Melbourne
4 June – 3 miles 13:00.4*, Los Angeles
4 June – 5000m 13:25.8, Los Angeles
16 June – 10,000m 28:14.0+, Turku
10 July – 3 miles 12:52.4, London
14 July – 6 miles 26:47.0**, Oslo
14 July – 10,000m 27:39.4, Oslo
27 October – 20,000m 59:22.8***, Geelong
27 October – one hour 20,232m, Geelong

* en route to 5000m
** en route to 10,000m
*** en route to one hour
+ not ratified due to delay in obtaining permission to run