Former Olympic Champion— Jack Lovelock Killed By New York Train

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 December 1949, Page 5

Former Olympic Champion— Jack Lovelock Killed By New York Train

NEW YORK, December 28 (Rec lTa.m.).—The former Olympic champion runner, Dr Jack Lovelock, of New Zealand, was killed by a subway train today. The police said that Lovelock had apparently suffered an attack of dizziness and fell from a station platform in Brooklyn in front of a Cofiey Island bound train. e ' Lovelock was on the staff of Manhattan s hospital for special surgery. His wife said he was coming home from; the hospital because he felt ill.

Three cars of the eight-car train passed over Lovelock’s body before the driver could stop. - In a later statement the New York police said that Lovelock’s eyesight, was bad. His glasses’were in his pocket when he was killed. The driver of the train said that he saw Lovelock topple to the tracks, but was unable to stop the train in time to'save him. Dr Lovelock was appointed assist-ant-director of the Department of Physical Medicine at the Manhattan Special Surgery Hospital in 1948. , Lovelock has not recently taken any active part in. athletics,, but was still keenly interested in them. Last

summer he acted as an official at the meeting between the combined team of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities against Princetown and Cor-' nell.

Lovelock met his wife, an American, while she was working with the United Services Organisation overseas. He was then a major in the Royal Medical Corps. There are two children. Lovelock ran a world record mile at Princetown, New Jersey, in July, 1933, beating Bill Boifthron in 4mins 7.6 secs. He won the 1500 metres at the 1936 Olympic Games at Berlin in world record time. His was the only New Zealand success and. he won the race in brilliant fashion.