Ron Clarke

Plaque name: Ron Clarke

Location: Athletic Field, Duncan MacKinnon Reserve, Cnr North and Murrumbeena Rds, Murrumbeena VIC 3163, Australia

Plaque awarded: 18/02/2023

Reason: Plaque Category – Legend

Ron Clarke (1937 to 2015) - Clarke showed in the 1960s that distance runners could race hard, race often, race anyone and everyone, but mostly that you could run a lot faster than had previously been thought possible.

His assault on performance barriers was stunning: in his halcyon days Clarke took almost 40 seconds off the world record for 10,000m between December 1963 and July 1965 – 36 seconds in one race – and 18 seconds off the world record for 5000m between January 1965 and July 1966.

The first of his 17 official world records was set at 10,000m (and six miles en route) in the 1963 Emil Zatopek 10,000m in Melbourne.

A sequence of prolific records followed but major championship gold eluded him. Clarke won an Olympic bronze medal over 10,000m in Tokyo in 1964 and silver medals at three miles at the Perth Commonwealth Games in 1962, at three and six miles in Jamaica in 1966, and at 10,000m in Edinburgh in 1970.