Merv Lincoln

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Merv Lincoln
Medal record
Men's athletics
Representing  Australia
Commonwealth Games
Silver medal – second place Cardiff 1958 One mile

Mervyn George "Merv" Lincoln (22 November 1933 – 1 May 2016)[1][2][3] was an Australian middle-distance runner who won a silver medal in the mile run at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and twice competed in the Summer Olympic Games.

Career

Merv Lincoln was born in Leongatha, Victoria[1] and raised in Wodonga, where for many years in his honour there has been a Lincoln Causeway adjacent to the Hume Freeway.[2]

He qualified for the 1500 metres final at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, finishing 12th.[1] He was tipped as a potential successor to the retiring John Landy as Australia's leading miler;[4] however, newcomer Herb Elliott defeated him at the 1957 national championships. [5]

Lincoln ran his first four-minute mile on 23 March 1957, the eleventh man in the world and the third Australian to accomplish that feat.[6] His time of 3:58.9 was less than a second short of Landy's world record of 3:58.0.[7] Despite his loss to Elliott at the Australian championships he did also win a national championship mile that year, winning the United States championship race as an outside competitor.[8] Track & Field News ranked him #7 in the world for 1957, one place below his Australian rival Elliott.[9]

Lincoln reached his peak in 1958 but was overshadowed by the rapidly improving Elliott.[10] The Australian team of Elliott, Lincoln and Albie Thomas swept the medals in the mile at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Lincoln running 4:01.80 for silver.[11] He set his personal mile best of 3:55.9 in Dublin on 6 August 1958,[6] finishing more than a second under Derek Ibbotson's world record of 3:57.2 yet still only being the runner-up as Elliott won in a new record time of 3:54.5.[12] Track & Field News ranked Lincoln as second in the world that year; however, that proved to be the last time he was ranked among the world's top ten,[9] and at the 1960 Olympics in Rome he failed to qualify from the heats.[1]

He was coached by the Austrian-born Franz Stampfl, a bitter rival of Elliott's coach Percy Cerutty.[13] Stampfl stated Lincoln only trained one hour a day, in contrast to the harder training of Elliott.[13]

He died on 1 May 2016, aged 82.[2][14]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Peter de Kruijff, "Wodonga 1950s one-mile track star Merv Lincoln dies aged 82 in Melbourne", The Border Mail, 3 May 2016. Retrieved 5 May 2016
  3. ↑ Merv Lincoln, Miler Who Was Always Second Best, Dies at 82
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ In some British sources, the date was incorrectly shown as 30 April.
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