John Walker Interview

It's a pretty short interview, but I'm posting it because Walker has always been one of my favorites. Even as an older guy (he's 57 now), you can easily get a sense of how tough this guy was. I really enjoyed the stories last year about him betting on Willis to take gold in the Olympic final.


Walker has PR's of 1:44.92, 2:16.6, 3:32.4, 3:49.08, 4:51.4, and 7:37.49. Many of these were WR's at the time, and he was the first guy to ever break the 3:50 mark. As he states in the interview, however, what makes an athlete great is his capacity to win a gold medal, which Walker did in 1976 in Montreal. (As an aside, this was a year in which several African countries boycotted the games due to the New Zealand rugby team touring through South Africa. [It makes about as much sense to me as it does to you.] Walker's winning time was the slowest since the 1956 games, though it was a tactical race and he closed in 50 point.)