📍Opunake, Taranaki, New Zealand
1938 – 1949“I was born in Opunake, a small town on the Taranaki coast, in December 1938, beneath the great cone of Mount Taranaki and beside the wild beaches of the Tasman Sea. My father was an engineer, and my mother looked after our family. Opunake was a dairy and farming town where children spent their days outdoors, and I was an energetic, competitive boy who loved every kind of game. We lived in Opunake until I was eight, when my father's work took us to Te Aroha in the Waikato. In those years I played everything, cricket, rugby and tennis among them, and I was good at most of them. I thought my future lay in tennis, and as a teenager I played in the Auckland and New Zealand junior championships. At Mount Albert Grammar School in Auckland I set school records on the track, but running was just one sport among many. In 1958 I met the coach Arthur Lydiard, who saw in me a natural middle-distance runner and persuaded me to give up tennis. His training, built on long runs over the hills of the Waitākere Ranges, transformed me. At Rome in 1960 I won the Olympic 800 metres as an unknown, and in Tokyo in 1964 I won both the 800 and 1500 metres. I later moved to the United States to study exercise science. Opunake has never forgotten me: the town calls me one of its favourite sons, and a statue of me running stands on the main street.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today