Statue to be unveiled at Lovelock's birthplace

A statue of Jack Lovelock, one of New Zealand's greatest Olympic heroes, will be unveiled next week in Crushington, the small West Coast township where he was born.

About 200 dignitaries and other guests are expected to attend the unveiling ceremony on Thursday next week, on the 100th anniversary of his birth at the goldmining township, near Reefton, on January 5, 1910.

Lovelock, who later became a highly accomplished Olympian and medical doctor, studied medicine at the University of Otago for two years before pursuing further study at Exeter College, Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar (1931-1934).

He became the first New Zealand track and field athlete to win an Olympic gold medal, and also broke the world record for the 1500m at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

Graham Gollan, who lives at Blacks Point, near Reefton, and has helped co-ordinate the statue project, said the memorial was "putting Reefton and the Coast back on the map".

Mr Gollan, who is also a committee member at the Blacks Point Museum, said many visitors, including United States tourists, came to the West Coast, and to the museum, but many did not realise that Lovelock had been born nearby.

Many people realised that he had later attended secondary school in Timaru, and wrongly believed his initial origins were in Canterbury, rather than in Crushington, where his English-born father had been a battery superintendent, he said.

The statue itself is of Lovelock in a traditional running pose.

It stands on a large quartz rock and together they are about 1.8m tall.

Blacks Point resident Alun Bollinger, an acclaimed cinematographer for The Lord of the Rings movies, designed the wrought iron silhouette statue and his brother-in-law, Danny Bass, of Crushington, constructed it.

Years after his Olympic success, Lovelock had continued his medical practice in New York, and his list of medical and sporting achievements had continued to grow until his death exactly 60 years ago yesterday, on December 28, 1949.

That day, Lovelock, who suffered dizzy spells, fell beneath a New York subway train and was killed.

The Crushington ceremony will include speakers and guests such as Pat McManus, the Buller District Mayor, and MPs, as well as Kevin O'Sullivan, the principal of Lovelock's secondary school, Timaru Boys High School.

Organisers said the project's $6000 budget had been met entirely by a series of donations from sponsors and supporters, including goldmining corporation OceanaGold, and Stracon, a goldmining services firm.

Crushington, once home to hundreds of gold miners, now has only two permanent residents.

It gained its name because of extensive quartz crushing which long went on there, as part of gold extraction.