The Running Machine

Jampacked in Oslo's Bislett Stadium, 33,000 track fans one night last week howled for Australian Runner Herb Elliott to break his own world's record for 1,500 meters. Elliott was obviously out to please, but he finished 1.4 sec. off the record of 3:36 that he set last month in Goeteborg, Sweden. "The going was hard and good, and I have no complaints," he gasped later, "except that I may be a little tired by now."

Elliott had plenty of reason to be tired. His Oslo race completed the greatest sustained middle-distance performance in the history of foot racing. High spot: setting the mile record at Dublin last month in the startling time of 3:54.5. He has shown endurance as remarkable as his speed: the day after he set his 1,500-meter record, he breezed through a mile in 3:58. In all, Elliott broke four minutes for the mile in every one of his ten races this year. Track experts foresee that if he keeps his determination, the lean (5 ft. 10 in., 150 lbs.) clerk for Shell Oil will some day hold every world record from 800 meters to 5,000 meters.

Born 20 years ago to a furniture dealer outside of Perth, Herbert James Elliott was good enough as a high school champion to run the mile in 4:22. When he broke his foot moving the family piano, Elliott gave up big-time racing, turned to high living, late nights and beer. Not until his father took him to the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne did Herb Elliott develop the spark of desire and discipline necessary for the lonely art of the mile.

The man who fanned the spark was a wiry, 63-year-old Aussie track coach named Percy Cerutty. A physical-fitness fanatic, Cerutty got Elliott to develop his deep chest by lifting weights, harden his legs by such tricks as running through ankle-deep sand and sprinting up and down an 80-ft. sand dune 40 times a day or more. To give Elliott the energy to run 25 miles a day, Cerutty stoked him with oats, nuts and fruits. He urged his pupil to "thrust against pain and be contemptuous of it."

But though he is hardened against the lung-searing pain of the mile, Australia's running machine may not be immune to the soft lure of the dollar. Last week a U.S. sports promoter named Leo Leavitt bragged that he had offered Elliott $248,000 for a two-year tour as a pro. Elliott admitted that he was thinking over the offer: "Wouldn't you if $248,000 were at stake?" But sportsmen Down Under took heart from Elliott's phoned statement to the Brisbane Sunday Mail: "I have my sights on a place on the Australian team for the 1960 Olympics."

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