Athletics: Life honour for Lydiard a little late in coming

Internationally-renowned athletics coach Arthur Lydiard is "not overly elated" to be awarded life membership of the sport's ruling body in New Zealand.

He said any satisfaction he felt was tempered by the fact that it had taken so long for the honour to be bestowed upon him.

Lydiard, credited with changing the face of middle-distance running with his coaching methods, was made a life member of Athletics New Zealand (Athletics NZ) at its annual meeting in Wellington.

Yesterday he said he had yet to hear officially of the award, but had heard from a friend and was very honoured.

"You don't get life memberships very easily," Lydiard, 86, said. "I am not overly elated but I feel honoured."

When asked why he was not "overly elated" he said it was because it had taken so long.

Athletics NZ general manager John Stewart said that was an issue for previous boards to answer.

The current board recognised the huge contribution Lydiard had made to international athletics. "Sometimes icons who are groundbreakers and who change things don't get the recognition they are due."

In the late 1950s and 1960s, Lydiard changed the way middle distance athletes trained, promoting heavy mileage to prepare them for competition.

He produced a stable of world record-holders, including Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, John Davies, Barry Magee, Jeff Julian and Bill Baillie.

Arguably his greatest achievement came in one afternoon at the 1960 Rome Olympics when Snell won the 800m final and Halberg won gold in the 5000m.

Lydiard was there to witness New Zealand's greatest day in Olympic history thanks only to the generosity of private supporters, who had raised money to send him to Rome.

He attended not as an official coach but in an unofficial capacity, after athletics officials would not have him on the coaching team.

In Rome Magee won the bronze in the marathon, the event Lydiard had represented New Zealand in at the 1950 Empire Games in Auckland.

Stewart said most runners recognised that Lydiard had changed the face of the sport.

"He has had a colossal effect."

Had more people listened to Lydiard, New Zealand might not be experiencing its increasing obesity problem. His view was that Lydiard deserved a special award in addition to his life membership.

Lydiard said he could not get the support he needed to continue to coach in New Zealand and in the mid-1960s he coached in Mexico, Finland and Denmark.

He said athletics officials had not agreed with his methods, but he had felt frustration at this rebuff rather than bitterness. "We could have had a lot more Olympic champions."

The New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, which inducted Lydiard in 1990, said he was largely credited with introducing stamina-based training and with beginning the worldwide jogging boom.

In 2000, Lydiard was named by an international magazine, Runners World, as one of the five most influential figures in running in the last century.

"I changed the whole concept of middle-distance running throughout the world," Lydiard said.

It annoyed him when New Zealand athletes were told to learn from the Australians. "But who did the Australians learn from? They learnt from me.

"They tell New Zealanders to go and learn from Australia. I get pissed off with that," he said, revealing once more the cussedness which punctuated his coaching career.

- NZPA