John Robinson

John Robinson was one of New Zealand’s most durable athletes. He trained using the principles of famed distance coach Arthur Lydiard and was always a strong runner.

Robinson represented New Zealand in the marathon at the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games, and in the 1969 world cross-country champs in Scotland, where he helped the New Zealand team to a 4th placing.

Though he continued to run marathons at various masters age groups, he turned ever more seriously to orienteering and became a champion in that sport too.

Robinson, born in 1939, first came to light when he won the Fletcher Marathon in Rotorua in 1965, timed at 2h 25min 25s. He won the Fletcher again in 1968 and was 2nd in 1972, behind Jack Foster.

He went close to winning the New Zealand championship in 1971, but was edged out by Dave McKenzie. He made no mistake in the 1974 national champs in Christchurch, when he won in the fine time of 2h 15min 03s, his fastest ever marathon time.

The run may have cost him, though. That race was held early in the season, on December 1, 1973, and he had to front up two months later in the Commonwealth Games marathon at the same location.

Robinson ran solidly in the Games, finishing 10th in 2h 17min 05s. It was a good performance and he had some outstanding runners behind him, including Ron Hill and Derek Clayton, but the suspicion was that his strength-sapping New Zealand championship victory might have taken a bit out of him. Certainly top runners in the modern era would want more than two months between major marathons.

Robinson ran the famed Fukuoka marathon in 1971 and finished 10th. In 1980, when he was about to turn 41, he ran 2h 29min 51s in the Boston marathon. A few months later, he won the world 40+ marathon age title in Glasgow, with a time of 2h 22min 52ss.

He continued running marathons, and ran in the 65+ age division in 2014, but devoted more time to orienteering. He’d been introduced to the sport in the late 1950s, when he was captain of the Owairaka athletics club.

In the early 1970s he joined the strong Pinelands orienteering club in south Waikato and he was a member of the first team New Zealand sent to a world championship, in Scotland in 1976, along with his wife, Val, also a leading New Zealand athlete. He attended subsequent world championships, always acquitting himself well.

Robinson won the Brighouse Trophy, awarded for the best orienteering performance of the year, when he was in the masters 70+ class, a tribute to his durability and enthusiasm.

He also became involved in the administration of the sport, serving on the Orienteering New Zealand’s technical committee and as coaching co-ordinator of the national squad.

John and Val Robinson’s daughter, Tania, followed in their footsteps, also becoming a world-class orienteer.