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JOHN LANDY - GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP.
Scripture Reference: 1 Cor 9:26-27, Heb 12:1-2.
When I was a young athlete, the greatest Australian athlete was John Landy. Every second week during the summers 1952 and 1953 I watched Landy attempt to break the four minute mile. Incidentally, on Thursday night I met with Sir Christopher Chatterway, who with Roger Banister was in the first four minute mile in 1953. There were powerful runners in those days. But there was no one in those days of the stature of John Landy.
He became the world champion miler in 1954, None was faster week after week in the world over the mile and three miles than John Landy. Ron Clarke already held the Australian and World Junior Mile record. As we came close to the Olympic Games everybody was looking to John Landy to set a new world record. The greatest race I've ever seen in my life was at the 1956 National Championships in Melbourne. I was along the side fence inside a crowd of 22,000 people when the entrants lined up for the start of the 1956 National Mile Championship. Everyone knew that if John Landy got a fast start in the early part of the race he would set a new world record. We were all wanting Landy to run and win.
When the gun went off the young men each representing their states sped to the first turn and at the end of the first lap Robbie Morgan-Morris had completed the first quarter mile in 59 seconds, followed by Ron Clarke, Alec Henderson, John Plummer and then John Landy. The time was right on target for a world record. At the half mile Robbie Morgan-Morris was still leading and the time was two minutes two seconds. At the start of the third lap young Ron Clarke and Landy moved forward at a cracking pace. The world record was on!
Landy jumps over Clarke
Landy had only to go with him and a new world record would be in his grasp. Then occurred an event which is etched into my mind so clearly that I can see it being replayed as if in slow motion. I can never think of the event without my eyes filling with tears. Clarke was moving to the lead as they came into the corner on the third lap. John Landy was on his shoulder. Alec Henderson tried to squeeze between the two runners and the inside edge of the curb. In doing so Clarke, with his spikes, clipped his heel. Clarke sprawled forward onto the cinder track while Henderson was knocked onto the inside arena. Landy leaped over the falling body of Clarke in front of him and as he did his sharp spikes tore into the flesh of Clarke's shoulder. The whole field either jumped over Clarke or ran round him. The crowd which had been chanting "Landy, Landy, Landy, Landy" with every stride suddenly responded with an enormous gasp.
Landy then did the most incredibly stupid, beautiful, foolish, gentlemanly act I have ever seen. He stopped, ran back to the fallen young Ron Clarke and helped him up to his feet, brushed cinders from knees and checking his bloodied shoulder said "Sorry". Clarke was all right. He said to Landy "Keep going, I'm all right. Run! Run!". Landy had forgotten everything. The Australian mile title, his bid for a world record, even the approaching Olympic Games in a spontaneous gesture of sportsmanship.
Clarke got to his feet and together Landy and Clarke set off after the other runners. They were 60 yards behind the rest of the field which had kept on running and the crowd did not expect them to continue. John Plummer, Merv Lincoln and Alec Henderson were leading the pack. Clarke and Landy sprinted off on that last half mile.
The crowd was shouting as with every stride Landy hauled in the front runners. He quickly ran round the rest of the field, came into the home straight leaving Clarke behind with the most powerful finish I have ever seen in my life. He stormed down the track and in the last ten yards passed Henderson and Lincoln to win the Australian Championship in four minutes, four seconds.
I doubt if there has ever been a reception given an athlete in all of history as those 22,000 people gave Gentlemen John Landy that day. The cheers and the applause would not die down. It continued minute after minute as Landy completed a victory lap. There was no question he could have set a new world record that day. Stopping and going back, picking up Clarke and then running back over his tracks had cost him eight or ten seconds. But it also unleashed in him a finish that was beyond anything that we had ever seen before. We had seen the greatest mile race in history. Landy was to go on and set new world records and become a hero at the 1956 Olympic Games but nothing compares with the race that summer night in the Melbourne Olympic Park in 1956 when he stopped, picked up young Ron Clarke and forgot himself into athletic immortality.
I have occasionally met that quiet gentleman, John Landy, and reminded him of that day when we saw one of the great moments of Australian sporting history. I have witnessed many sporting competitions since, both Olympic and Commonwealth Games and other world championships but I have never witnessed a moment like that which belongs to Gentleman John Landy. His was the act of a great sportsman and fine gentleman who was also the world champion.
For two years, 50 and 51 AD, the Apostle Paul lived and worked in Corinth on the Greek Peloponnese. Corinth was the home of the Isthmian Games, the Greek Games that came second only to the Olympic Games. Paul worked in the tentmakers shop owned by Priscilla and Aquilla. It was on the wide Lechaeum Road, which linked the port to the agora, or market place. The marketplace was bounded by a long portico, and in the southern stoa, was the office of the Isthmian Games. Nearby was the bema, or judgement seat where Paul was brought to trial. Not far away was the Temple of Apollo, seven of whose 38 columns still stand today. To the north lies the great theatre and to the south the ruins of the stadium where the Games were held. The 180 metre long straight track, was the length of a stade, which gave its name to the sprint, and to the hairpin shaped stadium in which the games were held. The stadium did not hold large numbers of spectators, like the Roman ampitheatres because the Greek sports were designed primarily for the competitors while the Roman Games were designed primarily for the spectators. There were many temples as the sporting contest was part of a religious and cultural festival. Everyone was involved. That is why Paul made so many allusions to the sports.
The Apostle Paul wrote to those Corinthians 1 Cor. 9:24 "You know that many runners take part in a race, but only one of them wins the prize. Run then in such a way as to win the prize." (GNB) Here in a few words was Paul's philosophy in life. Other Christians avoided similes with the sporting world which they knew, because it was so closely tied to the pagan religious festivals and the immorality that went with them. But Paul was unafraid to use an allusion to what the public knew.
1. RUN!
Obviously to be successful requires effort, discipline, training. Every athlete knows that. He says: 1 Cor 9:25-6 "Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever". Paul's teaching was that Christians had to participate in life, not withdraw to monasteries with walls for contemplation or to a life-style bounded by regulations that prevented Christians from doing this or that. Life was a race to be run! Christians should also run to win.
2. WIN!
The Apostle Paul wanted his readers to understand that Christians have a responsibility under God to be the best they can. God had a purpose for each life, and we must get ourselves ready to fulfill that purpose. So he wrote: 1 Cor 9:26 "Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly." Paul had purpose. His life was to be effective for the sake of Jesus Christ. He would fulfill his mission in proclaiming the Gospel. Nothing would stop him. Neither rejection, beatings, shipwreck, riots, imprisonment, threat of death and execution could stop him. These things may have delayed him, made him turn back to help his fellow who was in need like John Landy - but then it was back into the race. You could hear him say: Hebrews 12:1 "Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
Landy did not win at any cost. No one could find adequate words to describe John's performance. But in a fine piece of journalism Harry Gordon wrote (as an open letter to John) in the Melbourne "Sun" newspaper his understanding of what he had witnesses that day:
`Dear John, … "Yours was the classic sporting gesture. It was a senseless piece of chivalry, but it will be remembered as one of the finest actions in the history of sport. In a nutshell, you sacrificed your chance of a world record to go to the aid of a fallen rival. And in pulling up, trotting back to Ron Clarke, muttering "Sorry" and deciding to chase the field you achieved much more than any world record. Your action cost you six or seven seconds. And you sprinted round that last lap like a 220 runner to overhaul the field and win in 4:04.2. You, the fellow who used to be called a mechanical runner without a finish! A lot of people are wondering why you pulled up. The truth is, of course, that you didn't think about it. It was the instinctive action of a man whose mate is in trouble.'
John Landy, has spent his life since as a quiet naturalist, agricultural scientist, photographer, author and environmentalist. During this past month he was named as the new Governor of Victoria. He knew how to run, and how to win. So many people want to win by cutting corners, cheating, causing others to fall on the way. Paul insisted that we act like true gentlemen, sports heroes who would help another. How do we run to win, but also have this Christian character in our action? Listen to these words inspired by Paul: Hebrews 12:2 "Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." That is the secret: to run with perseverance the race before us, trying hard to win, but with our eyes fixed on Jesus who is ahead of us. We can run to win, but we do best when we are following the lead of the Master, with our eyes firmly fixed on Him.
Rev Dr Gordon Moyes
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Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
Posts: 4578 | From: Southeast Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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