February 2nd, 1974 – The Christchurch Commonwealth Games 1500 With Filbert Bayi, John Walker & Rod Dixon In “The Race For The Ages”!
Almost 3 years ago, friends and track geeks gathered via texting and zooming (due to the Covid era!) as we all watched the Tokyo Olympic Games 1500 meter semi-final.
Lining up in the 2nd semi was 2016 Gold Medalist Matthew Centrowitz, hoping to advance to his 3rd Olympic final. But incredulously, it wasn’t meant to be, as Centrowitz finished 9th in his race and failed to move on.
However, more astoundingly to us watching was the fact that Centro had run 3:33.69! Incredulously, some of us commented on how one can run so fast and finish out of it!
That’s when Tony Gulotta and I, betraying our age (!), commented with 2 names –
Our youthful pals had no clue what we were talking about, so not only did we regale them with the 1974 1500-meter Commonwealth Games race, but we linked them to the video of that unbelievable race.
Filbert Bayi, the “Mountain Man” from Tanzania, took the lead from start to finish, holding off John Walker, the Late Ben Jipcho, and Dixon to win the Commonwealth Goldando and break Jim Ryun’s 7-year-old World Record!
The top 5 times were as follows –
1) Bayi – 3:32.16
2) Walker – 3:32.52
3) Jipcho – 3:33.16
4) Dixon – 3:33.89
5) Graham Crouch – 3:34.22
Now, 50 years later, this extraordinary race, run on a track with spikes from the era, is revisited by Bayi, Walker & Dixon.
1) How motivated were you for the 74 Commonwealth Games?
Bayi –
“Yes, I was motivated almost 100% due to
I was ready to compete with the best 1500m athletes of that era. Mention the few Ben Jipcho, Mike Boit (KEN), John Walker, Rod Dixon (NZ)
Graham Crouch (AUS) and the other 6 in the race.”
Walker –
“I was very motivated. The fact that the Games was being held in NZ was a huge incentive for me to do well.”
Dixon –
“The Christchurch Commonwealth games were gathering National interest. John and I had our very successful 1973 European Scandinavian track travels. I was very determined to be the best I could be in Christchurch, and I had some exciting local races where I had beaten John once, and he had beat me once, so we were going into the games knowing that we could potentially do something special.
I believe we were ready for a World-Level Games.”
2) Who did you look at as your main competitors in the race? Who else were you looking at?
Bayi –
“Not really, as I did not even know Rod was the bronze medalist…
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