The Legend Of Lovelock Still Lives On

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30892, 27 October 1965, Page 15

The Legend Of Lovelock Still Lives On

[Specially written for "The Press" by

NORMAN HARRIS.)

JN the safe deposit vault of a bank in the heart of Manhattan, New York, there lies an Olympic gold medal inscribed with the words: “Berlin, 1936.”

The medal was deposited in the bank very soon after its owner, Dr. Jack Lovelock, was killed under a New York subwav train on December 28 1949. Just as Lovelock is still a legend as a runner in New Zealand so he is also a legend to a teenage New York girl—Janet Lovelock. Janet, the younger of Lovelock’s two daughters, treasures the gold medal on the rare occasions it has been brought out of safekeeping. The first time she had ever seen it was when she carried it to school, with great excitement, at the time of the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.

This young girl has never ceased to be fascinated by her father’s feats, as described in the newspaper clippings of his great races, and by the medals presented to him at Timaru Boys’ High School. Incredibly, she not only has her father's face, her features fine and sensitive, but she is like her late father in everything she does.

“Janet is very quiet," says her mother. “And she sometimes takes a long while to decide on something. When she does decide she goes directly to the heart of the matter. This is just like Jack.” Her elder sister. Mary, aged 16, is more forthright—and in the last school holidays she earned enough money by staging Saturday kindergarten classes in the family apartment to finance a forthcoming trip to England.

Mrs Cynthia Lovelock has married again, to a New York lawyer, Mr L. R. Tharand, and the family has been enlarged with a son. Yet even now, after 13| years, the memory of Jack Lovelock, of his running and his death, are still very much in everyone’s minds. Even Mr Tharaud, although he never knew Lovelock and was never actively interested in athletics, looks at photographs of Lovelock moving rampantly to victory in the Berlin Olympics and says with genuine admiration and enthusiasm: “My gosh, just look at him go. That’s terrific!”

And he takes a delight in serving coffee on a silver tray inscribed with the name of J. E. Lovelock. “I suppose he won it for winning some race,” says Mr Tharaud. “Well ... . it sure wouldn’t be for coming last.”

However, though all in the familv share an interest, only "Mrs Cynthia Tharaud can remember December 28, 1949. the day that made world headlines, and the events preceeding it. “That morning.” she recalls. “Jack woke with a bad head from one of those 24-hour ’flus which go around—the rest of the family had just had

it. 1 suggested that he stay at home but he insisted he would manage all right, and went to work. “This was very early, about 6.30, because he wanted to clear up a good few things before the day’s work proper started. At about nine o’clock he ’phoned me and said he would have to come home because he was dizzy with the ’flu.” The end of the story—a story which has always been a mystery in New Zealand—is that Lovelock fell from the platform edge and was run over by three coaches of a subway train. “I am aware,” offered Mrs Tharaud, “of what people have said. But I have no reason whatsoever to believe anything else than that the fall was accidental. His eyes were very bad. much worse than most people realised. It started with the severe concussion he received when he fell from a horse during the war. “He suffered double vision. and had to keep alternating a patch of frosted glass between his eyes to try and balance them up. It never worked. Neither did exercises.

In the space of a few months in 1946 he had five eye operations. The improvement to his sight was minimal only.

“He realised that the trouble was not going to be fixed and that he would have to get by as he could with thick glasses. Without the glasses he had double vision all the time; with them he had double vision only when he looked up or down. “He very early on accepted the fact that things would be like this always. At the time he was deeply involved in his physical medicine work at the New York Hospital for Special Surgery. He was working under the head doctor and in line for advancement.” The hope of the Tharauds now is that the two girls will some day be able to visit the homeland of their father, for they have heard about the construction of a certain Lovelock track in Auckland. The would like to think that one day the windswept Lovelock track will be a stadium. And if this becomes a reality they believe it would be the only proper

place to permanently house the fascinating store of mementos which up until now have been kept in New York.

These comprise: Twenty volumes of scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings, photographic prints and Lovelock’s

own description of every race he ran. The mounted cartridge of the bullet which started his world record mile run. A remarkable gramophone record, containing possibly the most famous sporting commentary in history, in which Harold Abrahams, the 8.8. C. commentator in Berlin, falls into a de-

lirium of exultation. A black blazer with a silver fern, and three medals presented at Timaru Boys’

High School. Only the treasured gold medal would stay in the vault of a Manhattan bank.