Stuart Williams (third from left) with fellow winning 4000m team pursuit members Nigel Donnelly, Glenn McLeay and Gary Anderson. Photo / Kenny Rodger
Stuart Williams (third from left) with fellow winning 4000m team pursuit members Nigel Donnelly, Glenn McLeay and Gary Anderson. Photo / Kenny Rodger
Mt Eden resident wants burglar to return his 1990 Commonwealth Games memento
A gold medal at the Auckland Commonwealth Games marked the achievement of a lifetime for Stuart Williams - but his prized decoration is now in the hands of brazen burglars.
The former champion track cyclist was at work when 14-year-old son Alex phoned him on Monday with the news that their Mt Eden home had been broken into that afternoon.
"He realised there was stuff all around the window outside our bedroom, so bolted to the neighbours straight away and rang me," Williams said.
Arriving home, he found the thieves had rummaged through his bedroom drawers.
"They'd pulled out all the usual stuff - old cufflinks and all the things that you accumulate - but, unfortunately for me, that was where my medal was hanging out."
The medal, which Williams earned as part of New Zealand's team pursuit squad in the 1990 games, was the first thing he began searching for.
"They also took a few items of my wife's jewellery and commemorative medals from a couple of Commonwealth and Olympic Games, but I didn't really care about them - it's only really the [gold] medal that has any significance.
"It's in a blue velvet case, and it has a ribbon and some markings engraved around the edges of it, so it does look quite spectacular - but it's not gold, just gold-plated, so it's virtually worth nothing."
Stuart Williams, a former track cyclist whose gold medal, won at the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990, was stolen from his Mt Eden home on Monday. Photo / Supplied, Dean Purcell
Hopeful that the thieves had quickly figured this out themselves and dumped it nearby, Williams searched gardens, rubbish bins and drains around the neighbourhood, but found nothing.
While he was relieved his family hadn't arrived home to disturb the burglars, the possibility of never seeing his medal again was beginning to sink in.
The police had been "magnificent" and yesterday sent a forensics team to the house, but he was not optimistic about retrieving the memento.
"I'm sitting here today, quite clearly depressed by the idea of not having something that I worked hard for, and which I perhaps took for granted because it just lurked in various drawers around the house."
He appealed to the burglars to drop the medal back in his mailbox, or leave it where someone could find it, as it was now on police records.
