PHOTO
Hayden Meikle counts down the 150 greatest moments in Otago sport.
No 120: John Campbell turns back the clock (1988)
John Campbell reached the best form of his life in 1988 when he won the national cross-country title and represented New Zealand in the marathon at the Seoul Olympic Games.
He had been a promising long-distance runner since starting his competitive career in Dunedin for the Mornington Athletics Club, as a 15-year-old in 1964.
Campbell finished 69th at the world cross-country championships in Scotland in 1969 but had lost interest when he was not selected for the 1974 Commonwealth Games. He became a commercial fisherman.
Campbell came back into serious running in the 1980s, and in Oamaru in 1988 won his first national senior cross-country title.
He was aged 39 and was the oldest runner to win the senior men's title. He was the last Otago runner to win the title.
Later that year, Campbell finished 12th in the marathon at the Seoul Olympic Games.
After competing at the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990, he joined the United States masters circuit, and won the masters title in the three big US marathons - Los Angeles, Boston and New York - two years in a row.
He held the world masters marathon record with his best time of 2hr 11min 4sec.