John Landy

I had the joy of ringing Marjorie Jackson and saying to Marge, how do you feel about us naming the female athlete of the year after you? And she was our first Olympic gold medalist over the 100 metres.

And not only that, her and John Landy are my all-time heroes because I have met them both on numerous occasions.

And they're even greater humans than they are athletes, both magnificent people.

And Marge ended up being the governor of South Australia and John Landy the governor of Victoria.

Yeah.

And then we've named the Male Athlete of the Year after John Landy.

Brilliant.

And then our Para Female Athlete of the Year is named after Amy Winters.

Todo cambió.

A la semana siguiente, cuando nadie lo había conseguido, a la semana siguiente, John Landy lo consigue en Finlandia y al mes siguiente más de diez personas.

Y a día de hoy es algo que todo el mundo puede hacer.

Y eso es lo que y-yo me fijo.

got one.

We can walk 20 minutes from here and find a statue of John Landy bending down to help a fallen Ron Clark.

I think it was the Victorian Mile Championship up in the Olympic Park Precinct,

Russ.

Well, I'm about to talk about something that's 70 year ago.

So 70 years ago, the great John Landy, who was our-

Oh, this is the most famous one

... record breaker in, in mile, as it was 1600 back in the day of run... and breaking the four-minute mile, as you-

... uh, Roger Bannister, who was a great competitor against him, beat him to it.

But after that he kept smashing it.

But a, a young runner at the time who ended up breaking lots of records himself, Ron Clarke, was in the mile, and John Landy was running and heard the commotion behind him.

Ron Clarke had tripped and fallen.

Kowalski married Teresa Ferraiuolo on June 19th, 2006.

He became a vegetarian, actually, after being influenced by middle-distance runners Roger Bannister and John Landy in 1953.

Kowalski did not eat meat, dairy, or eggs.

He has been described as an outspoken vegetarian and vegan.

I got a couple of Aussie, uh, icons.

Uh, John Landy, the, the 40-20 picked up-

Mm, yeah

...

Ron Clarke when Ron Clarke-

Yeah

... re- fell in that race, and John Landy stopped and picked him up and continued on, and John Landy won the race.

How extraordinary piece of, uh, data that is, and that memorable moment which you can find online where he does just that.

The other people, you know, their names are on Wikipedia and in the history books, but they're not Roger Bannister.

Anyhow, an American named Wes Santee would run a four-minute, 2.4-second race in June of 1953. an Australian, John Landy, who many considered the finest runner in the world.

He ran four minutes, two seconds later that year.

So we're getting closer and closer.

Now, we talked about how others were trying to break this record, too.

Well, Roger Bannister's record would last 46 days.

And it would be topped by his rival, John Landy, who we mentioned earlier.

Okay.

At the time, breaking four minutes in the mile was considered an almost impossible athletic barrier.

But just 46 days later, John Landy of Australia ran 3.58 in the mile, breaking Roger Bannister's world record and proving that what was once thought as impossible had become attainable.

Now let's jump ahead, no pun intended, a few decades and over to the field events.

In July of 1988, Willie Banks became the first human in history to jump beyond the 18 meter barrier in the triple jump.