Athletics: Book reveals spat over world records

Bill Baillie (left) and Norman Harris relive the day Baillie set his records nearly half a century ago. Photo / Richard Robinson

A scandal that threatened to deny a New Zealand running legend two world records was revealed this week.

Bill Baillie set new marks for the hour and 20,000 metres 46 years ago but learned with the publication of a new book the details of a drama that nearly robbed him of the records.

Former New Zealand Herald sportswriter Norman Harris reveals in Beyond Cook's Gardens: A Writer's Journey the lies and bullying that occurred in a cover-up that ensured the records were ratified.

Baillie, 75, broke both the hour and 20,000m marks held by four-time Olympic champion Czech Emil Zatopek on the Lovelock track in Owairaka on August 24, 1963.

But on the ratification form to be sent to the world athletics body the referee wrote "track and advantage".

Harris learned of it, arranged with the Auckland association's clerk to photograph the document and filed a story that appeared in Monday morning's paper about the record being in jeopardy. The photograph was not published but kept safe in the news editor's locked drawer.

The association's president in that afternoon's Auckland Star claimed the Herald story was untrue and that there was no problem with the record application.

Harris phoned the president, who, he writes, gave him a verbal volley and told him there was no such form as described by the Herald.

Harris relays in his book how there was a lengthy silence after he told the president of the existence of the photograph.

"Thanks very much, Norm," the president said.

"Thanks very much."

Soon after, Harris got a call from the clerk. The president had phoned her and said her nomination as a chaperone to the 1964 Olympics would be withdrawn if she didn't stop the Herald publishing the photo.

The paper's dilemma was that by publishing the photograph and proving its story was right, it would ensure the original form was used and put the records at risk.

The photo was never published. Baillie's records were ratified

Harris points out the records were deserved. The section of the form that asks about advantages is to guard against "unfair" advantages such as indoor board tracks with extra spring.

The referee was an amateur official who had written the comment because the bitumen Lovelock track would be faster than local grass tracks at that time of year (winter).

"I wasn't aware and I have to thank Norm," says Baillie. "I wasn't cheating. This poor bloke was probably well meaning he'd had been promoted out of his depth."

Baillie, one of Arthur Lydiard's stable of runners, was the first non-European to hold the hour record since an indigenous American known as "Deerfoot" 100 years earlier and astonished world athletics because he took it from Zatopek, rated one of the greatest distance runners of all time.

Baillie's records - the hour/20,190m and 59m 28.6s for 20,000m - were beaten by Australian great Ron Clarke two years later but are still the national benchmarks.

An athlete himself, Harris had mixed feelings about his editor's decision not to publish the photograph. Harris was horrified that the Auckland president should decide to lie, bully a volunteer official and threaten him a young reporter that his career covering athletics would have been over had the photograph been run, but was aware of the possible consequences for Baillie of putting the record straight.

"As a journalist I was being called a liar and my story was said to be wrong. But my frustration was fairly short-lived. I'm glad Bill had his records. I wouldn't want to have been responsible for him being denied."

The president has died but Harris chose not to name him, he says, to spare the man's family.

* Harris lives in England, where he worked for the Sunday Times for 20 years. Beyond Cooks Garden: A Writer's Journey is his 24th book. It is available direct from Last Side Publishing, $30. www.normanharrisbooks.co.nz