Great’s words inspire
Images of famed Kiwi long distance runner Dick Tayler's “special moment” winning the 10,000m at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch are set to inspire sporting stars-in-the-making from CHB.
At the CHB Mail Central Hawke's Bay Sports Awards last November, a photographic montage of Tayler's winning run was auctioned off as a fundraiser for the CHB Sports Academy.
Tayler's win on the opening day of the games against a fancied field — including English world record-holder David Bedford — still ranks as one of New Zealand's most memorable sporting moments.
He set a new Games record time of 27mins 46.40 secs which stood for 44 years, until it was bested at this year's Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
The photos of his triumph were taken from the stands at Christchurch by Waipukurau's Ivan Adcock back in his student days, using a SP 500 Pentax camera and a 135mm telephoto lens using 35mm film.
The anonymous bidder, who paid $1100 for Adcock's images, then donated the montage back to the academy so it could be put on display.
Tim “Coach” Ewen, co-host of Central FM's Centralines Sports Show, who came up with the idea of auctioning the montage, then later enlisted Jamie McKay from Newstalk ZB's The Country to get Tayler himself to sign one of the images.
After Tayler appeared on Ewen's radio show from Dunedin late last month, CHB Sports Academy director Siu Swinburne was presented with the finished montage containing the new signed photo put together by CD Print in Waipukurau, which donated the frame.
On the image Tayler has written: “Follow your dreams, work hard, don't settle for second best. You can achieve greatness and enjoy the journey “My special moment was January 25th, 1974 . . . You can have one too.”
Swinburne said would it hang in the academy's ‘unofficial headquarters' at AW Parsons Stadium, where she hoped it would inspire the academy's current crop of 24 athletes.