Norman Read
New Zealand Olympian: 111
New Zealand Olympian: 111
Norman Read, the 1956
Olympic 50km walk gold medallist, was one of New Zealand's least-acclaimed
Olympic athletics champions. The ever-smiling Read, whose sudden death in 1994
was such a shock (he was Athletics New Zealand president at the time), has
never received the recognition his feat deserved.
Perhaps it's because
walking isn't the most fashionable track and field discipline. Or because Read
was relatively unknown to New Zealanders in 1956 – he'd emigrated from England
in 1953.
He took up walking
because it was common where he grew up - Steyning, Sussex. He was born at
Portsmouth, and was evacuated to Steyning during the war. “At school I played
soccer, cricket, rugby and other sports, but walk was the big thing in our
town.”
Read, coached in
England by Johnny Henderson, won several national junior titles, but decided,
after attending the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and meeting a happy group of New
Zealanders there, to move Down Under. He moved to New Zealand as a
totally-assisted immigrant, when he was 22.
Initially he was
frustrated at the lack of road walking held in New Zealand. He worked at
Ruapehu building a tramping hut and in his spare time climbed all over
Tongariro and Ngauruhoe, feeling that walking at 6000ft altitude must help. In
1956 the national champs included road walks for the first time. He shifted to
Trentham and started on longer walks, sometimes to the top of the Rimutakas and
back.
But though he was the
best walker in the country, he failed to gain selection for the 1956 Olympics.
He shifted to Melbourne in a last-ditch attempt to make the New Zealand team,
winning the Australian walking trial in September in 4h 30min. Less than two
months before the Games, he was finally was selected.
Read was a crowd
favourite during the Olympic walk. By the time the walkers had completed two
laps of the Melbourne Cricket Ground and progressed to the streets outside, all
117,000 spectators were aware of him. “I decided to have one more nervous one
while we were all in the dressing room. When I came back, they'd gone. I
panicked and raced around trying to get to the track. I made it with two
minutes to spare. When I came running out, the crowd all laughed.”
Read walked at the
1960 Olympic Games, finishing a creditable fifth in the 20km event, and won a
bronze medal at the 1966 Kingston Empire Games.
He continued to walk,
eventually winning 18 national titles from 1956-75, and got involved in
coaching and administration. He was a member of the IAAF international walking
panel and judged at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games, the 1992 Barcelona
Olympics and 1993 Stuttgart world champs. He also coached a number of leading
New Zealand walkers, including Murray Day and Mike Parker.
Read was heavily
involved in athletics administration in Taranaki and in 1984 even offered to
sell his Olympic gold medal to raise money for an all-weather track in
Taranaki.
He had a variety of
jobs after moving to New Zealand. He was a carpenter-joiner until 1956, then
had several stints working in, then owning, grocer shops in Hawera and
Auckland. He lived in Whangarei for a time, but through the 1980s and until his
death he worked in New Plymouth in the finance industry.
Read was made New
Zealand Sportsman of the Year in 1956 and voted into the Sports Hall of Fame in
1990.
Besides the battle to
establish walking, Read had to ward off suggestions he was not a New Zealander.
“Coming from England made things harder,” he said. “I married a New Zealand
woman and we had four kids, but I'd still hear suggestions I wasn't a real New
Zealander.”
His most famous reply
came at the press conference after his gold medal walk. “What are you,” asked
one English journalist, “a Kiwi or a Pom?”
“Call
me a Pommie Kiwi,” Read shot back.