Euan Robertson

Euan Robertson, born in Lower Hutt in 1948, will always be remembered as the athlete who defied the Olympic selectors to belatedly take his place at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

Robertson was educated at Scots College, then attended Massey University and gained a degree in agricultural soil science. He was a soil conservator for the Ministry of Works in Dunedin from 1973, then moved to Cambridge and Auckland and earned an MBA degree.

By the mid-1970s, Robertson was one of the stalwarts of New Zealand middle distance running. He was a star performer in successive New Zealand cross-country teams at the world championships, including being a key member of the 1975 world champion team.

And on the track, he was a 3000m steeplechase specialist who travelled around the European circuit with John Walker, Dick Quax and Rod Dixon. Some athletes wilt under pressure but Robertson could lift his performance when the stakes were high.

He was well respected in the steeplechase, but astoundingly was overlooked when the 1976 Olympic team was named. The controversial decision sparked a protest movement in Otago, and a public campaign to raise funds to get Robertson to Europe to run a time that would satisfy the selectors.

The Olympic selectors kept raising the bar and Robertson satisfied them only on his fourth attempt, with a New Zealand record time of 8min 22.8s at Stockholm, which ranked him in the top six in the world. By then the selectors simply could not ignore his claims, but sadly he’d run himself to a standstill just to get in the team. During his barnstorming season in Europe he also ran a sub-four minute mile - 3min 58.90s in Berlin.

At Montreal, Robertson hammered out another New Zealand record of 8min 21.08s for an admirable 6th placing. “Not bad for a reject,” said his coach, Arch Jelley.

Robertson ran at two Commonwealth Games. At Christchurch in 1974, he was 5th in a race won by Kenyan star Ben Jipcho. The New Zealander’s time was 8min 35.2s.

In Edmonton at the 1978 Commonwealth Games, he finished 4th in the steeplechase. He ran a comfortable 8min 53.08s in his heat and a disappointing 8min 42.32s in the final behind three Kenyans.

He won New Zealand titles in the 3000m steeplechase in 1976, 1978 and 1980, the 10,000m in 1979 and the cross-country in 1980.

His record in the world cross-country event was outstanding. He first represented New Zealand in Scotland in 1969 when he was 13th in the individual race, the second New Zealander home after Rex Maddaford, and helped New Zealand to 4th in the teams event.

In 1973 in Belgium, he was 15th in the individual event behind Rod Dixon, Dick Tayler and Bryan Rose and helped the team to the bronze medal.

The crowning moment in the cross-country was in Morocco in 1975 when the New Zealanders won the world team title, an achievement that later earned them a place in the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. In the individual event, John Walker was 4th, Robertson

5th, Dave Sirl 25th, John Dixon 26th, John Sheddan 33rd, Bryan Rose 34th, Jack Foster 36th, Kevin Ryan 72nd and Dick Quax 113th. There were 185 starters.

New Zealand finished on 127 points, winning by a huge margin from England (193) and Belgium (213). Robertson started conservatively, concentrating on getting into a rhythm, and was in the middle of the field for the first 800m. He had moved up into the front bunch by 4km of the 12km course.

Robertson continued to represent New Zealand with distinction in this tough race. In Germany in 1977, he was the first New Zealander home, in 6th place, with the team 5th.

In a weak New Zealand team in Ireland in 1979, Robertson turned in a commendable 17th placing, but the team could finish only 13th.

In Spain in 1981, he was the 3rd New Zealander to finish, in 58th spot. Only in 1983 in England, when he was nearly 35 and reaching veteran stage, did he fail to fire, finishing 155th.

Robertson was running with a group of young athletes on the sand dunes at Bethells Beach near Auckland in December 1995 when he collapsed and died of a heart attack, aged 47.