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 2 3 4 "Merv Lincoln Bio, Stats and Results". Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 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. ↑ "Clash to Decide Champion Miler". The Sydney Morning Herald. 7 March 1957. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  5. ↑ "New Mile Champion Elliott Seeks Landy Record Today". The Age. 12 March 1957. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  6. 1 2 Sparks, Bob (2002). "Four-minute mile data". Archived from the original on 10 October 2009. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  7. ↑ Butler, Mark; IAAF Media & Public Relations Department (2013). "IAAF Statistics Handbook Moscow 2013". International Association of Athletics Federations. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. ↑ Mallon, Bill; Buchanan, Ian; Track & Field News. "A History Of The Results Of The National Track & Field Championships Of The USA From 1876 Through 2011". Track & Field News. Archived from the original on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  9. 1 2 "World Rankings — Men's 1500/Mile" (PDF). Track and Field News. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  10. ↑ Welch, Bruce (24 June 1958). ""Runner-up" Role for Merv Lincoln". The Age. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  11. ↑ "COMMONWEALTH GAMES MEDALLISTS - ATHLETICS (MEN)". Athletics Weekly. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  12. ↑ "Record Mile at Dublin". The Montreal Gazette. 7 August 1958. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  13. 1 2 "The Amazing Herb Elliott". Sports Illustrated. 11 October 1958. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  14. ↑ In some British sources, the date was incorrectly shown as 30 April.
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