The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 273

r- e. ii map A tl IX. 11 II II LI I 1 I 1 kunui i icjwix i an ma nay iiim mnwi uw i champion. He triumphed in two track events, tSca rz0 i wi mMC tor frpvcv' 01 on the 'Aj, tf "77iey tell me I have become the lion of Athens. Edwin Flack (right).

In a letter from Athens to his father in Melbourne, April 1896 11 fl LOOKED crook, no doubt about it. I a. I Crossing the line first at the Olympic Ii 1,500 metres final at Athens in 1896, the slender young man looked as if he was all in; as if the next gasped breath would be his last. He'd given it everything he had. Around him, officials were going through the names on the starting list to see who the winner actually was.

Got him. "Flack, But no country was recorded against his name. "Where are you from?" one official asked the still-heaving athlete. "Australia," Flack got out. "Where's that?" the perplexed official, by one newspaper account, is reported to have replied.

No answer. Well, not to worry; the official quickly scurried off to find the Australian flag in time for the medal ceremony. He returned shortly afterwards with what he thought would do the trick. Flack caught sight of it, and now at least had the strength to rebuke him. "I'm Australian, not Austrian," he said, before adding, perhaps a little sheepishly, "we haven't got a national flag yet." FLACK And nor did we, it still being five years before Federation, so the officials instead raised the Union Jack in honour of the first Australian to win an Olympic event Edwin Flack was, by all accounts, someone his country could be proud of, for more reasons than merely his athletic prowess.

Born in London but raised in Melbourne from the age of one, he was the son of Joseph H. Flack, a well-to-do accountant who did handsomely enough in his practice to be able to afford to send his son to the very expensive Melbourne Grammar School. Edwin was as good at his schoolwork as he was at his athletics. He went into his father's business straight from his studies, and also kept at his running career, becoming the fastest man in Australia over the mile in 1893 and 1894. In 1895, aged 21, he was sent to Britain to get some international experience In the highly exciting world of accounting.

He worked with Price Waterhouse Co, and while there, a previously vague ambition hardened within him. He had heard that a Baron Pierre de Coubertin was planning to hold something called an "Olympic Games" a modern version of an event that had last been held years before in Greece early in 1896. Flack was determined to take part It was certainly an adventurous purpose for someone later described by Australia's pre-eminent Olympic historian, Harry Gordon, as "Innately conservative, an accountant's accountant almost pedantic in his insistence on recording in his diary the blandest details of his life: the wandering around empty OrymplC sxa Irijusttnel k(f moiMtaMjMpics. HeJusriny b-MtlyrWnlch had1 farf mooataMjMpics. He tosriainy bwaUKwnidi had dusty Wnmifir certainly looked inf awfully latSratkcnwd wtat IM wrm SplrMoa Lnlt (at ltft)lialslMdlim la tit maralkta.

Amtrallal Etfwli Flack irrtvad at tit stadia ia aa amhalaact. trains he caught the meals he ate, the letters he received, the rain that fell, But it may have been this meticulous approach to life that stood Flack in good stead when it came to getting ready for the Olympics. He had kept up his athletic condition in Britain by turning out for the London Athletic Club. In the lead-up to the Games, he redoubled his training efforts, running before and after work. He asked for a month's holiday from work and set aside money for the trip.

In early 1896, he headed off to Athens in good physical and financial nick. Did he tell the Australian athletic authorities? There weren't any. Nor was there any Olympic Village, so when Flack arrived in the Greek capital on April 1, 1896, after travelling for six days by train and boat from London, exhausted and perhaps even a little sorry he'd decided to do it he settled down first in a small hotel and then in a house with some Englishmen that he met He started some light training for his first event five days later. He still had enough time free to play the tourist though, and delighted in traipsing around the Greek capital, stopping at the cafes, visiting the Parthenon, attending a midnight mass and a fortunate side effect it meant he didn't tax his energy. And in the afternoon he won the final of the 800 metres quite easily, in the time of 2 minutes, 11.0 seconds.

Flack received as warm a response from the Greek crowd as he had on winning the 1,500 metres, but now there was no time to tarry. On something of a whim, he decided to enter the marathon race on the morrow, and had to make his way to the start that very afternoon. Despite the fact that he had never run more than 10 miles. Flack was feeling so strong he thought he just might have a chance of winning the marathon, too. There was, however, a problem.

The marathon tradition, so the story goes, was established when an ancient Athenian messenger delivered news of a great victory over the Persians after running 26-odd miles, and then promptly dropped dead and Flack had cause to be reminded of that story as the wagon taking him to the start at the town of Marathon kept rolling and rolling across the rough where he knew he would soon be performing. There he teamed that a peculiarity of the athletic track was that it was designed and constructed according to ancient dimensions, meaning that it had very long straights, exceedingly narrow corners, and a very rough surface to boot ON HIS FIRST day of competition, the young Melbumian won his heat of the 800 metres quite easily, and then prepared for what would be the one-off final of the 1,500 metres, due to be held on the afternoon of the following day. His strongest competitor, he knew, was the American Arthur Blake, a noted fast finisher, so Flack decided his best chance was to burn him off early in the first laps. It worked, sort of. The problem was that with one lap to go, Flack hadn't actually succeeded in his burning-off strategy and as they came into that last agonisingly long straight, Blake suddenly came on strong.

Drawing level, they matched each other stride for 20 metres or so, it was the American who faltered and Flack went through to break the tape first by a margin of five metres, in the time of 4 minutes, 33.2 seconds. Gold, gold, gold for Australia, even if the medal for coming first back then wasn't actually gold, but silver. With it you received a diploma and a crown made of olive branches. (Second place got a bronze medal, and third place a pat on the back and a At the moment of victory, and in the ensuing medal ceremony, Flack received particularly warm acclamation from the substantially Greek crowd who were jack of seeing Americans win almost all the events. The Greeks might not have been sure if Flack was Australian or English, but he clearly wasn't American, and that was the main thing.

Two days later, Flack prepared to win another medal, this time in the final of the 800 metres. On the morning of that final he played tennis, which was also Included in these inaugural long way, and it took him more than four hours to make the journey. He spent a comfortable night in the home of one of the locals, and woke the following morning with some measure of confidence. He had already proved himself the best distance runner in these Olympics to date, and felt that if he could just stay upright until the end of the event, then his natural speed would allow him to take any of the plodders still with him. There were only 15 runners in the race.

The main threat Flack thought, would come from the American, Blake, the Frenchman, Lermusiaux, and any one of the Greeks who'd been training on the course and would have the fanatical support of the locals lining the way back to Athens. Many of them had quite literally been praying for a single Greek victory in the first modern Olympics. Each runner would have an athletics official on horseback assigned to him to make sure no-one was taking any short cuts or getting any lifts, and some SO OLYMPICS SPECIAL Ml II, 1000 July It. 2000 OLYMPICS SPECIAL SI.