Games legend recovering from brain surgery

New Zealand sporting great Yvette Corlett is recovering from brain surgery in Auckland Hospital, but wants to send her customary good luck message to the Commonwealth Games athletes.

Her family said she was comfortable after the operation but declined to disclose further details. Despite the operation she wanted to send an email to the team, especially track and field athletes, including throwers Valerie Vili and Beatrice Faumuina and long-jumper Chantal Brunner.

Her brother Roy Williams, who was decathlon gold medallist in the 1966 Commonwealth Games, will send the email on her behalf.

This time, however, 76-year-old Corlett (nee Williams) will receive best wishes from the team, who have prepared a message to the former Olympic and Commonwealth champion.

Corlett was admitted to hospital two weeks ago. She had an operation on Thursday and is recovering in hospital beside the Domain, where she trained her way to one Olympic gold and four Empire Games gold medals.

Triple Olympic gold medallist Peter Snell has sent a message from his home in Dallas. "She's my favourite female," he said of Corlett.

Yvette Williams won gold in the long jump at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and is a four-time Empire Games champion - in long jump (twice), shot put and discus. She also won silver in the javelin in the 1950 Empire Games in Auckland, and set the long jump world record in on a grass track in Gisborne in 1954. She represented New Zealand in basketball, and Otago and the South Island in netball.

Before the Helsinki Olympics, she would train for an hour at 6am at home in Devonport, then travel to Khyber Pass, where she worked as a secretary at Hughes & Cossar. At lunch she'd run up and down the hills in the Domain, then work four more hours, train for three hours and get home at 9.30pm.

Her training equipment included a bucket and spade. She'd dig out her shot from the muddy ground with the spade, then wash it in a bucket, dry it with a towel and throw again.

Yvette Corlett's fax number at Auckland Hospital is (09) 307 2851.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY