Possessing an indomitable spirit and never-say-die attitude Marise Chamberlain was a trailblazing figure in the history of Kiwi women’s athletics.
During a lengthy career she bettered or equalled eight world records/world best time from the 400m to the mile and became her country’s first and still only female Olympic track medallist — her success paving the way for generations of female athletes to follow.
The second-eldest of four children, she was born in Christchurch in 1935, Marise showed her athletic potential from a young age: a primary school sprint champion she secured her first Canterbury title over 220yd aged 15. She quit athletics aged 16 but three weeks before her 18th birthday, she had a re-think after a work colleague, whom Marise had previously beaten on the running track, started training with Technical Athletic Club.
"I thought, well if she is going to run, then I am too," she recalled.
It was there at the first day of training that she met Latvian-born Valdy Briedis, her coach and mentor.
"I’d seen him once at Rugby Park (at an athletics meeting) and someone had said how good he was," she said.
"When I saw him that day I knew immediately he would be my coach. I approached him and said, ‘I don’t know whether you remember seeing me (run)?’. He replied, ‘yes, I know who you are.’ I then asked ‘would you please coach me?’ He looked at me with a big smile, shook my hand and said ‘certainly’."
Training under Valdy’s dictatorial coaching-style was far from easy: in the prime of her career, Marise would regularly clock up 100km a week. Energy-sapping runs up the Port Hills were common and training sessions, which were carried out every evening following her work as a full-time typist for a tyre company, would typically be three hours long.
"I believed everything he told me and I enjoyed some wonderful success with him but he was a very hard man," recalls Marise of her coach who was brought up under the old Soviet coaching system.
"I must have had a million and one tears in my time with him. He was always growling but when it formed in my mind he was doing this to push me to be the very best I could, I could then take whatever he threw at me."
Initially featuring as a 100yd and 220yd sprinter — the direction of her athletics career changed in 1957 after the international governing body declared women were eligible to run world records over the 400m distance. Having never previously been allowed to compete over distances longer than 220yd — the move opened up a new world of possibilities.
Valdy identified Marise’s potential over the longer distance and at the 1957 Canterbury Championships she recorded a time of 57.0 seconds to take a share of the world record .
In 1958 she won selection in the 100yd and 220yd for New Zealand at the British and Empire Commonwealth Games in Cardiff. The experience proved traumatic for the then 22-year-old athlete.
On the journey to Wales, the team were forced to spend a week in India following a mechanical issue with the plane. Marise along with many members of the Kiwi team became chronically sick and she was diagnosed with a form of cholera.
Determined to compete she rushed back to training but picked up a hamstring injury. An English physio ensured she made it to a start line, where she placed third in her 100yd heat in 11.4, reached the semifinals of the 220yd and placed fourth for New Zealand in the women’s 4x110yd relay.
However, on her return home the illness and looking like "a bag of bones" on arrival, she had to spend a lengthy period recuperating.
The 1960 Rome Olympics included a women’s 800m but no 400m on the schedule, so Marise shifted her focus to the two-lap distance. She achieved the qualification mark for the 800m and was nominated for a place on the New Zealand team only to be controversially overlooked for final selection.
"I was bitterly disappointed," she said of the selectors’ decision. "It broke my heart." She emerged in 1962 a much stronger athlete and in March made a quantum leap forward over the two-lap distance. Competing in Perth, Marise ran 2:03.2 to record the second-fastest time in history.
Marise made the Rome Olympic selectors "eat their words" when she returned to Perth later that year to win an 880yd silver at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games. The Kiwi then stayed on in Western Australia to finish her year on a high by setting world best times for the 1500m (4:19.0) and the mile (4:41.4).
Going into the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Valdy and Marise faced a choice in which event they should target and they opted for the 800m.
The Cantabrian cruised through her heat, recording a time of 2:06.8 for second behind the pre-event favourite Maryvonne Dupureur, of France. Then in the semifinal she grabbed top spot to record a time of 2:04.6 "with the brakes on" before she took to the start-line for the final — the following day. A restless sleeper at the best of times and playing the race through her head "101 times" that night, Marise did not get a wink of sleep and felt like a "dead duck" and bereft of energy on the day of the final.
Going through the bell in sixth, Marise was well adrift of the pace set by Dupureur. With 200m remaining the Kiwi still sat in sixth when she was suddenly sparked from her lethargy.
"I could hear the crowd shouting "black, black, black" which was for me in black singlet. The fact that they were calling for me jolted me into life and I took off. I ran three wide around the final bend, which was mad and showed my inexperience. But the minute I took off, Ann Packer [of Britain] followed me.
"Lying second behind Dupureur entering the home straight I then saw Ann Packer go past me. In the final 50m I knew I couldn’t win gold or silver, I just have to hang on for third. I was grateful I did because I was dead on my feet. It was the wrong day for me (to produce my best) but I still got a result."
Marise crossed the line in bronze in 2:02.8 — 1.7 seconds adrift of Packer, who set a world record time.
After undergoing surgery in 1965 to fix the chronic bursitis injury she was advised by the surgeon to quit the sport after the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica.
She eased through her 800m heats and into the final. Planning to sign off her career with a gold medal, just four metres from the finish line and holding a seemingly insurmountable lead she collapsed to the ground after her Achilles gave way.
"I ended up walking across the line in sixth. I was shell-shocked and the whole stadium went silent. Returning home I hoped the plane would land in the Pacific because I felt like I’d let everyone down."
Retiring at the age of 31, she later dabbled in coaching, including her daughter Marissa Stephen, an Oceania 4x400m champion.
In 2011 her home in South Shore was irreplaceably damaged in the earthquake and her second husband, Lewis Schou, died in 2014.
"We lost everything in the earthquake, it affected everything including my husband’s health. But I’m a fighter, a Cantabrian and you just keep going. I will not let anything beat me."
Marise was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1995 and eight years later became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Marise Chamberlain died on November 5 aged 88. — Steve Landells/Athletics NZ
