George Blake – Australia’s First Great Olympic Distance Runner By Andy Milroy George Blake was arguably the first great Australian distance runner. At the marathon, his sixth place in the 1906 Athens Olympics was not to be improved upon until Rob de Castella finished 5th at the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984. His 6th place also in the final of the 5 mile event in the 1906 Games, an event later superseded by the 10 000 metres, was not to be surpassed by an Australian until Alan Lawrence in 1956. In his running career, Blake was to face many of the top distance runners of his day and although he never achieved international victory, his results show he was a great competitor. After racing in Australia, the then greatest distance runner in the world, Englishman Alfred Shrubb, stated that he considered Blake the best long distance runner in the country. Perhaps like John Landy, Blake would have benefited from the greater competition in Europe, thus having a better prospect of reaching his true potential. But his running was rooted and grew in the harrier traditions of Victoria. In his two Olympic outings in his strongest event, the marathon, in the words of his team mate, Greg Wheatley, he suffered “real bad luck”. George Bernard Blake was born on the 4th September 1878 in St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, which during his childhood became a popular seaside entertainment centre for the working class of the city. His parents John Blake and Ellen Coen were Irish immigrants from County Galway in Ireland. They had emigrated soon after their marriage in 1863, and the first of their eleven children was born in Morang, Victoria. George was the eighth child and seventh boy! Later described as “the plucky little Victorian runner”, at under 10 stone/around 62kg, and probably about 5 foot six inches/1.67 metres, he was a strongly built, compact individual, well suited to distance running. George was born into a sporting family. It is unlikely that John Blake, his father, had been able to compete in Ireland. Athletics in Ireland at that time was only open to the gentleman amateur. For example the students of Queen’s College Galway took part in athletic sports, but the local working classes were excluded. When the Irish emigrated to Australia and America, they found not just economic but also sporting opportunities. George was later to compete against both Irish-Americans and Irish-Australians in his running career. George’s older brother Thomas, born in 1872, was an outstanding distance runner. At the age of 14 George would have seen his brother finish second in the Victoria 3 miles track championships, and then second in the 10 miles cross country, just ahead of Edwin Flack, who was to win gold at the 800 and 1500 metres in the Olympic Games at Athens just four years later as well as then tackle the marathon. The following year, Tom Blake finished second in the Australian 3 mile championships and won the state 10 miles cross country in 1:03:34, a feat he was to repeat in 1895 in a time of 59:45. But by 1897 Tom Blake’s running career, at the age of 25, seems to come to an end. There may have been a family crisis of some kind, because he also left the Carlton Football Club around the same time. He was eventually after a year’s gap to come back in to football, joining the St Kilda Club for a couple of years. Perhaps from 1897 onwards he then focused on coaching his younger brother, who had probably already joined Tom’s club, Melbourne Harriers. George too played the Australian Rules game, playing seven games for St Kilda College in the 1897-98 season. (He made his debut in St Kilda v Geelong match in June 1897.) By 1899 at the age of 21, George Blake was already competing for his athletic club at state level. Although he did not finish in the Victoria state 3 mile championships that year, he contested the mile title as well. It was in the much longer 10 mile cross country championships on the 16th September that his true strength was revealed, perhaps for the first time. He was an endurance athlete like his older brother. He was third in 1:00:22 on the Caulfield course. With the dawn of the new century in 1900, he began to establish himself as a major Australian distance runner. In September he took the state ten mile cross country championships in 1:01:27, once again on the Caulfield course, going away from the previous winner, Herbert Whiting. The Melbourne Argus noted “G Blake, the winner, is a younger brother of T. Blake, the champion of 1893 and 1895 and the old Carlton footballer.” It was the last time it was necessary to remind readers of his brother’s illustrious sporting career when referring to George Blake. In October that year it was decided to hold a ten mile race on the track to see what sort of time the leading performers in the annual cross country could do on a track. Charles Herbert had run 59:05 on the country, and it was hope that the race would be won in 55 minutes. However on the day there was a “heavy north wind” and the track was very hard. The track was 370 yards in circumference, so that the competitors had to start 210 yards before the winning post, and had to pass it 48 times to complete the 10 miles. At the start the favourites, George Blake and William Cumming, set off almost last. At three miles the order was Blake, Rufus Fergusson, Hugh Cannon, Cumming and Donald M'Donald, and “the pace was fairly warm for a while”, and at four miles Blake, Cumming. Fergusson, and M'Donald were a long way ahead, close together. This was the first such race to be held in Australia and there was the chance of a record at five miles. Four and a half miles into the race, Blake and Cumming surged away into a lead, and were soon 20 yards ahead of Fergusson, with M'Donald 20 yards further back. Blake reached the five-mile post in 27min. 43 3-5scc, a few yards ahead of Cumming, to claim the record. Cumming, who reputedly was short of training, had been wiped out by the race to the five-mile record and retired. Blake was now out on his own against the clock. He knew that a New Zealander T O’Connor had set an Australasian record of 57:02; the conditions were far from ideal and he had only lapped runners to chase. He ran the next mile in 5:45, to reach the 6 miles in 33:28.6, another Australasian record, a distance which had little significance then, but was later to be the imperial equivalent of the international standard 10 000 metres. He slowed a little over the next mile, reaching seven miles in 39:20.2 (5:51.6) , another record, but managed to slow his decline a little over the next mile lasting 5:54.4 to set another Australasian record of 45:14.6 for eight miles. He had overtaken M'Donald at seven miles, and Rufus Fergusson a mile later. “Blake kept his beautiful long stride going to the finish” Nine miles, another record, was reached in 51:10 (5:55.4). However if he could only sustain this pace, the Australasian 10 mile record would elude him. Aware of this, he rallied to run strongly to the finish, covering the final mile in 5:47.5 to take the 10 mile title and a new Australian record in 56:57.6, breaking the former record by a mere 3 seconds. The report in the Melbourne Argus made the telling points that “The wind and the hardness of the track were against record times, and from five miles, when Cumming retired, Blake had practically no opposition. Had he had someone to make a pace for him Blake, might easily have knocked a couple of minutes off the time.” The promoting club the Melburnian Hare and Hounds presented Blake with a gold medal and a silver medal to the runner-up. With two Victorian titles in the bag, there was just the annual track championships in November to tackle. The newspaper report was brief. “The three mile race, in which the cross-country men appeared, proved an easy thing for the cross-country and track 10-mile champion George Blake.” Thus right from the beginning of his career, his strength as an endurance-based runner, was very apparent. In the longer events at ten miles and further his strength would tell, but in shorter events, the mile, three and five miles, he could be vulnerable to the faster runners, the half milers and milers moving up in distance, hanging on and then sprinting to win on the final lap. At the national level he was perhaps unlucky that the longest track event was just three miles. The longer five miles event, contested at the 1906 and 1908 Olympics, would have suited his talents better. By 1901 Blake was established as a strong performer at 3 miles, again taking the state title (15:47.8), he was also 4th at 10 miles cross country in 1:03:24. Later in the year he travelled to Auckland, New Zealand to contest the Australasian Track Championships. He did not finish in the mile but the following day was the first Australian in the 3 miles behind William Simpson of New Zealand (14:49.0), improving to 15:45.8.