Bookshelf

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31236, 7 December 1966, Page 17

Bookshelf

'THE deeds of the brilliant x Australian distance runner, R. Clarke, are well known to New Zealanders and many will no doubt welcome the insight into the background of this great athlete which is provided by his recently published biography, THE UNFORGIVING MINUTE (Pelham Books, 189 pp. His story is well told by the Australian tports writer, Alan Trengrove, and does not rely on sensationalism as a means of boosting sales. There are criticisms of some Australian athletic officials but the comments are always balanced. Clarke tells of how his first love was Australian Rules football, of his early days as a junior when he held the world junior mile record and of his withdrawal from major athletics after kindling the Olympic flame at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne to concentrate on his business career. He

recalls his decision to take up running again at the age of 24 and the astonishing string of world records which followed.

. . if I didn’t give athletics another go I would always be tantalised by doubts about what 1 might have achieved had I trained consistently, because no person likes to waste his potential,” Clarke says. However, he never allows athletics to get out of perspective and makes it clear that his philosophy is to enjoy running. He emphasises that he can still enjoy a race he does not win. Herein probably lies the key to his dramatic losses at Olympic and Commonwealth Games levels. Details of his training formula contained in the book should interest young athletes hoping to make their mark in the sport. Of special interest to New Zealanders will be the comments on such household names as Peter Snell, Murray Hal berg, John Davies, and Neville Scott He has a particularly high regard for Scott. He was “one of the best 5000 metres competitors in the world,” Clarke says. Not realising Scott’s decision to retire from athletics and take up cycling, Clarke predicts that Scott might be capable of setting a world record. The book does not give the full Clarke story for this would be impossible. He will be making his last big effort in international athletics at the Mexico Olympic Gomes in 1968. It would be, however, a valuable asset in the library of any sports enthusiast. One surprising omission is any reference to the Commonwealth Games at Jamaica.

Clarke is an enigma. He has been very aptly summed up in the foreword to the book by the former world mile record holder, J. Landy. He says: “He is a performer of fantastic feats of endurance who can be beaten by a relatively unknown in a club event, and seemingly be unmoved by either eventualtty.""