Olympics: Golden Kiwis vividly recall glory days

Next week sees the anniversary of two Olympic victories which sent New Zealanders into raptures. TERRY MADDAFORD looks back.

For 20 years after winning the 1500m at the Olympic Games in Montreal, John Walker did not see the special piece of gold he won in that epic final.

On his return from the 1976 Olympics, Walker consigned his medal to a bank vault for safekeeping. Only recently has he kept it at his South Auckland home.

Occasionally, in the hope of inspiring budding Olympians, he brings it out "to show young kids."

On Tuesday, Walker will quietly reflect on the day 25 years before when he stopped the watches at 3m 39.17s to win his first and only Olympic or Commonwealth Games gold medal.

A day earlier, on July 30, 16 New Zealand hockey players will be just as low-key as they reflect on the day they struck gold in what remains one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history.

The hockey players have already celebrated, however, marking the 25 years since their 1-0 win over Australia with a nostalgic reunion in Wellington on Thursday.

Unlike Walker, who carried the weight of an expectant nation as he took on and beat many of the best - an African boycott in protest at the All Blacks' tour of South Africa that year robbed the field of what some reckoned were his only serious challengers - the Tony Ineson-led hockey team were the real longshots.

Yet, within a 24-hour period, New Zealanders at home were twice stopped in their tracks.

First, by a scratchy radio broadcast of the hockey final as their team clung to the precious one-goal lead Ineson had given them with 28 minutes to play.

Second, a day on, came the television drama as Walker hung on to win a race which 25 years on he recalls virtually step-by-step.

After a rocky ride to the final - the hockey men won only one of four pool matches - New Zealand then beat Spain 1-0 to reach the semifinals, where Thur Borren and Greg Dayman scored in a 2-1 win over Holland.

Ineson remembers the final vividly.

"There are certain parts of the match I hope I will never forget," the 51-year-old said. "The penalty corner from which we scored was no fluke.

"It was something John Christensen [who hit out], Barry Maister [who stopped the ball with his hand] and I had rehearsed thousands of times back in Christchurch."

Ineson shrugs off suggestions that New Zealand had no right to win Olympic gold in a tournament which brought together the great hockey-playing countries such as India, Pakistan, Germany and Holland.

"We had all been well-coached in the basics.

"Our skills and technique were right up there and we were as fit or fitter than any team in Montreal."

Ineson, of Christchurch, played on after 1976, but the Government-led boycott robbed him and his team-mates of the chance to defend their title in Moscow.

"That was huge disappointment, especially with all the work we had put in," Ineson said.

After a handful of club games, Ineson drifted away from the sport, returning only in the past few years as his 12-year-old son Brad makes his way through grades.

Goalkeeper Trevor Manning played the last 12 minutes of the Olympic final with a broken kneecap.

"It is still pretty clear to me," 55-year-old Manning said in Wellington.

"I was whacked on the knee and went down, but I couldn't be replaced because Australia had won a penalty corner.

"And you didn't want an Aussie to know you were injured, anyway.

"The adrenalin was pumping. Nothing was going to stop us.

"Those old cane pads gave little protection, so an injury like that was not too surprising."

A hobbling Manning had to be helped on to the victory dais and when he returned to Wellington he faced an operation.

He continued playing club hockey, but never again in goal.

Walker reckons he had his race run and won before he ventured on to the track. "We were all in the holding pen before being called out.

"The others were still in their tracksuits, but I stripped down to my black singlet and shorts, and walked around looking at each of them individually."

He believes his rivals were intimidated before they got to their marks.

"Apart from my age [49] it seems like yesterday."

Still special? "Very much so. Winning a race like that, especially in those controversial circumstances, is the pinnacle.

"But after I had broken the world mile record in going under 3m 50s the year before, the statisticians said it would be impossible for me to win.

"Two other Kiwis had broken the world mile record and won the Olympic 1500m - Jack Lovelock and Peter Snell.

"That was incentive enough for me. Mentally, it was the most demanding race I ever ran."

Many insisted Filbert Bayi's absence detracted from Walker's win. He knows differently.

"While Tanzania were part of the African boycott, Bayi told me a couple of years later that he would not have been in Montreal anyway because he was battling malaria."

Like the hockey team, Walker was denied the chance to defend his title in Moscow.

After becoming the first to run 100 sub-four minute miles, Walker's international career crashed to a spectacular end when he was tripped in the 1500m final at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland.

But July 31, 1976, remains "his" day and one he, like the hockey players , is in no hurry to forget.