Remembering Sir John Walker's world record mile

By Barry Guy of RNZ

It was 50 years ago today that Sir John Walker achieved one of the great moments in New Zealand athletics.

On 12 August 1975 Walker broke the world record for the mile.

Twenty-three-year-old Walker lined up at the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden with the aim of breaking the record and also wanting to go under three minutes and 50 seconds.

Tanzanian Filbert Bayi, Walker's great rival from the 1974 Commonwealth Games, had set a new mark of 3:51.0 in May 1975.

Bayi had beaten Walker for gold in the 1500m final at the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games, breaking that world record along the way.

Walker's coach Arch Jelley said Walker went to Europe in 1975 in great form.

"We thought he would do it," Jelley told RNZ.

"He was in very good shape. I always thought he was capable of doing it and on that day in Gothenburg if he'd been paced he would have done very much faster."

Walker had to do it all himself over the latter part of the race as he was cheered on by a vocal crowd who new a world best time was on the cards.

"I knew as soon as I crossed the line, the reaction from the crowd that I had broken the world record, but I didn't know that I had run under 3:50," Walker said some years later.

"It wasn't until a watch was thrust under my face that I realised I'd broken 3:50."

He didn't just break the record, he smashed it taking 1.6 seconds off the time set by Bayi a month earlier.

His time of 3:49.4 was exactly 10 seconds faster than Roger Bannister did 21 years earlier when he became the first person to break the four minute barrier for the mile.

His achievement followed the likes of fellow New Zealand greats Jack Lovelock, Yvette Williams, Marise Chamberlain and Sir Peter Snell to have broken world records.

Coach Jelley said getting an early phone call at his home in Auckland with the news that Walker had broken the record was something he would never forget.

"Absolutely because when I woke up on August the 13th it was my birthday (53rd birthday) and John had just broken the world record, so it was a very good birthday present."

The achievement shot Walker into stardom, however at the time he didn't realise the significance of it.

"It wasn't until I got back to the hotel room when all the adulation had died down, the victory laps, the kisses, the flowers the waving to the crowd had gone, it wasn't until I got back to the hotel room and settled down with a couple of beers that the phone started ringing from all over the world, then I realised what I'd done."

Sir John Walker went on to win the Olympic gold in 1976, while his mile record stood until 1979 when it was lowered by Sebastian Coe.

Walker now lives with Parkinson's disease.