Jack Lovelock

Jack Lovelock (statue in the grounds of Timaru Boys High School in Timaru, New Zealand)

John Edward "Jack" Lovelock (born January 5, 1910 in Crushington near Reefton , † December 28, 1949 in Brooklyn , New York City ) was a New Zealand middle-distance runner and medic, who was 1936 Olympic champion .

Youth and education

Lovelock was born the son of English immigrants. In his childhood the family moved to Greymouth , Temuka , Fairlie and Timaru . His father was employed as a manager at the Mount Cook Motor Company. His father died in 1923 when Jack was 13 years old. It has been suggested that this early loss gave him the impetus for his accomplishments. He had already won his first scholarship at the junior championships in elementary school.

Lovelock also showed his athletic talents while in high school . He later studied medicine at the University of Otago . During this time he won for the university team in the mile run at the New Zealand championships. In 1930 he won the Rhodes Scholarship to attend Exeter College at Oxford University , to which he went in 1931. There he benefited from the company of Jerry Cornes , the president of the Oxford University Athletic Club and world class athlete. It was around this time that Lovelock also met Arthur Porritt , a former Olympic medalist over a mile and later Governor General who now worked as a surgeon in the UK . Porritt became his friend and advisor. In the following years his training became more conscientious and was under medical supervision.

Sporting successes

His athletic progress astonished everyone. On May 26, 1932, he set a new British and Commonwealth record over a mile. This made him the fifth fastest mile runner in history. Two weeks later he broke the world record over three quarters of a mile with a time of 3: 02.2 minutes, which made him the favorite contender for the 1,500 meter run at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles (1932). Due to his inexperience on an international level, however, he only reached seventh place. The first places went to the Italian Luigi Beccali (gold), the British Jerry Cornes (silver) and the Canadian Phil Edwards (bronze). The following year he devoted exclusively to his studies and training. In 1934 he left Oxford and went to St Mary's Hospital Medical School in London . A short time later, he won three important one-mile runs at London's White City stadium , including the AAA championships and the 1934 British Empire Games .

In mid-1935 he suffered from an inflammation of the knee and a swelling of the Achilles tendon. He treated himself by injecting himself with a vaccine made by Alexander Fleming . After restoring his health, he began intensive training for the upcoming Olympic Games. His strength was that he could walk at a high pace over long distances and still had enough strength for a strong final sprint. For some time he seriously considered whether he shouldn't compete over 5000 or 10,000 meters, as the competition over 1500 meters was also very tough. His training schedule already corresponded to that of the long-distance runner.

1936 Olympic Games in Berlin

Jack Havelock breaking the finish line on his 1500 m world record run at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin

At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, however, he decided to take part in the 1,500-meter run. The finals on August 6th was a tough race and was dominated by Glenn Cunningham from the start . 300 meters from the finish line, Luigi Beccali wanted to start his powerful final spurt like 1932, but was surprised by Lovelock, who overtook him and thus secured the gold medal. Silver went to Cunningham and bronze to Beccali. Lovelock won this run with a time of 3: 47.8 minutes, which was a new world record and was more than 4 meters ahead of his pursuers. At the same time, it was New Zealand's first gold medal in athletics.

His Olympic victory was filmed in a single shot and later immortalized in Leni Riefenstahl's film Olympia . In 1990, the New Zealand Ministry of Post issued a 40-cent special stamp in his memory.

Career after an active sports career

Shortly afterwards he ended his sporting career. He turned down the offered position as New Zealand's national sports director because he did not like the public eye and returned to England. There he graduated and practiced, specialized in rheumatism and worked as a freelance journalist . During World War II , he served in the British Army as a medical officer on the home front. In 1940 he had a riding accident while hunting. As a result, his eyesight decreased and he was temporarily plagued by dizziness.

Lovelook married Cynthia Wells James, an American secretary at the American hospital, on March 26, 1945. They had two daughters, Mary and Janet. In 1947 they moved to Brooklyn , New York , where Lovelook received a PhD and worked as the assistant director of physical medicine and director of the rehabilitation department at the New York Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan . On December 28, 1949, while suffering from the flu, he got one of his dizzy spells in Church Avenue station in Brooklyn, got under the subway and was instantly dead.

reception

The New Zealand author James McNeish studied Lovelock while on a DAAD scholarship in Berlin in 1983, interested in the still not fully clarified circumstances of his death and the personality change of the athlete, which led to the termination of his sporting career after 1936. McNeish's diary Ahnungslos in Berlin was published in German in the LCB edition in 1986 and is the preliminary work for the Lovelock novel Auckland, which was only published in English.

An exhibition is dedicated to him in his former school, Timaru Boys High School . There is also a statue of Lovelock and his Olympic oak with a memorial stone on the school premises .

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  Timaru Boys High School

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  Statue of Jack Lovelock

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  Plaque on the front of the Jack Lovelock statue

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  Lovelock Oak

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  Jack Lovelock Oak memorial stone

Web links

• Jack Lovelock in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Helga Neubauer: Timaru - history . In: The New Zealand Book . 1st edition. NZ Visitor Publications , Nelson 2003, ISBN 1-877339-00-8 , pp. 730 .
2. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997) . In: N. Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change . Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, pp. 41-56.
3. ^ Entry on McNeish, James at the DAAD's Berlin artist program.