Walker’s tribute to Van Damme
NZPA Staff correspondent | London The New Zealand track! star John Walker yesterday) paid tribute to the memory, of the Belgian middle-dis-tance runner Ivo Van Damme. Walker visited Van Damme’s parents and placed flowers on his grave. Van Damme ran second to the New Zealander when Walker won the gold medal in the Olympic 1500 m last year, but was killed in a car crash earlier this year.
Today Walker is in Brussels to compete in the Ivo Van Damme memorial athletics meeting this morning (N.Z. time).
“He had so much talent it wasn’t funny,” he said of the Belgian. “His parents were about the same age as my parents and I just kept thinking it could have been me.”
The New Zealander told the N.Z.P.A. he was in good shape for his bid today to add the world 1500 m record to the world mile record he already holds. Walker’s team-mate, Dick Quax, will also be running in the meeting, competing in the 10,000 m. Quax arrived in Belgium yesterday after doing high altitude training with the United States marathon runner, Frank Shorter, in the Colorado Mountains.
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Press, 17 August 1977, Page 6
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192Walker’s tribute to Van Damme Press, 17 August 1977, Page 6
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