Ron Clarke

Ronald William Clarke was born in Melbourne, Victoria, into an athletic family. At age nineteen in 1956, Clarke was chosen to carry the Olympic flame into the Melbourne Cricket Ground and light the cauldron for the 1956 Summer Olympics, suffering burns to his arm when the magnesium flare flared unexpectedly. After focusing on accountancy for several years, Clarke returned to competitive distance running in the early 1960s.

Between 1963 and 1968, Clarke conducted an unprecedented assault on the international track record books. During a celebrated 44-day European tour in 1965, he broke twelve world records in sixteen races, including slicing eighteen seconds off the 5,000-meter world record and becoming the first human being to run 10,000 meters in under 28 minutes (27:39.4 in Oslo, shattering the previous mark by thirty-five seconds).

Despite setting 17 world records, Olympic gold eluded him. In the 10,000m at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, he won bronze after being overtaken in an upset by Billy Mills. At the high-altitude 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Clarke suffered severe oxygen deprivation in the 10,000m, collapsing unconscious at the finish line and suffering permanent heart damage. In a moving gesture of sportsmanship, Czech champion Emil Zátopek secretly gave Clarke one of his own Olympic gold medals in Prague, whispering: 'Look after this, because you deserve it.' Clarke was later elected Mayor of the Gold Coast, serving from 2004 to 2012.