Editorial: Saluting a true champion

OPINION: It truly is a red letter day in South Canterbury, given that it's the centenary of the birth of one of our greatest sporting champions.

Indeed, Jack Lovelock can certainly be said to be our top human sports star. Only wonderhorse Phar Lap could arguably be said to have achieved more in a sporting sense, but plainly he didn't do it single-handedly. There was some critical human involvement in the execution of his victories.

Nevertheless, there's something truly fitting about the fact that, just weeks after honouring Phar Lap through the unveiling of a magnificent statue in Timaru, we are today honouring the memory of a man who has had a statue in his honour standing proud here for some time.

Of course, Lovelock wasn't born in South Canterbury, as Phar Lap was, but the fact that he spent his formative years here, living in Temuka and Fairlie and being schooled at Timaru Boys High School, means he can truly be called a South Cantabrian. Like Phar Lap, though, the size and isolation of New Zealand naturally meant that his greatest triumphs came on foreign soil.

Lovelock's achievements are naturally most particularly celebrated here and on the West Coast, where he was born and where, appropriately, a memorial will be unveiled today.

But we shouldn't become too hung up over exactly where he was from because the reason he is worth celebrating is that he became an iconic figure for all New Zealanders through his amazing track achievements, culminating in his 1500m gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Lovelock was a true international superstar, New Zealand's first, and is thus not surprisingly remembered with affection throughout the country. He was the forerunner of other great New Zealand middle distance champions and though his achievements may later have been equalled, and possibly bettered, by the likes of Peter Snell and John Walker, there is no question that in terms of middle distance running, he was a trailblazer. Indeed, those two gentlemen would undoubtedly be among the first to acknowledge that fact.

Today, we salute a true champion.

Another thing:

On the subject of 100th birthdays, there is another one approaching in South Canterbury, that of the Caroline Bay Carnival, which will take place for the 100th time at the end of this year.

It may no longer attract the massive crowds one can see in black and white photographs from yesteryear, but there is no doubt that the carnival remains a major attraction, receiving national news coverage each year.

People all over the country, even if they've never been, know of the Caroline Bay Carnival. Hopefully plans are afoot to make the centenary edition a bumper one.

- © Fairfax NZ News