Herb Elliott: Why EVERY Australian Runner Still Fears This Name

In 1956 an eighteen-year-old from Perth climbed over a back fence into the Melbourne Olympic Village, shook a few famous hands and was thrown out by a security guard. Four years later, in the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Herb Elliott won the 1500 metres by twenty metres in a world record of 3:35.6 — a record that stood until 1967, and the first Olympic track title won by an Australian man since Edwin Flack in 1896. This is the full story of the greatest miler who ever lived, and of the man behind him. The sandhills at Portsea and the strange, brilliant old coach Percy Cerutty who fed him raw oats and told him that pain was only pain. The night in Dublin in 1958 when he took 2.7 seconds off the world record and dragged five men under four minutes. The quarter of a million dollars he refused on principle when he had no money and a young family. Anne, the hairdresser from Perth he married in 1959 and never left. The office job at Shell, the adding machines, the grey Austin. Cambridge, and a career that simply stopped at twenty four, before anybody had any idea where his ceiling was. And the long life afterwards: Puma, Fortescue, the torch in Sydney in 2000, the clock he posted back to the French Embassy in protest, the millions he is reported to have lost in 2008 and never complained about once. He lost exactly one race over the mile or 1500 metres in his whole life, as a boy of fourteen, to a lad three years older, on an ordinary afternoon in Perth that nobody bothered to record. If you remember that era, tell us where you were when the news came through from Rome. Your memories keep this channel going. Tags herb elliott, herb elliott 1500m, herb elliott rome 1960, percy cerutty, portsea sandhills, australian athletics history, australian sport legends, 1960 rome olympics, 1500 metres world record, golden mile, four minute mile, merv lincoln, ronnie delany, michel jazy, albie thomas, 1958 empire games cardiff, santry dublin 1958, vladimir kuts, australian olympic gold, aussie sporting nostalgia, greatest miler of all time, athletics documentary, sports history documentary, aquinas college perth, undefeated runner, 1950s athletics, 1960s athletics, fortescue metals herb elliott, sydney 2000 torch, australian sporting greats