"I enjoyed it enormously and if I didn't win gold medals then so be it," he told me the first time. "I had a go, I did my best. I loved running, as I've loved the rest of my life with my family and my work." Ron Clarke Credit:Fairfax Media One of the factors keeping him grounded was Helen. When he broke his first world record in 1963 - over 10,000 metres - she had the car to drop off the kids, so he had to first walk the two miles to Melbourne's Olympic Park after work, before competing, and then walk to a party for one of their bridesmaids. "I remember him coming to the party," Helen told me, "saying, 'I broke the world record', and me saying, 'That's nice dear, can you give us a hand with handing out the sandwiches?'" Both laughed warmly at the memory.

"Running was just a pastime, a hobby," Ron said, "and world records and things like that just weren't that important back then." Yes, he was disappointed at the time not to win gold at those Olympics, despite being favourite in both the 5000m and 10,000m for two of them, but no more than that. "My style as a runner," he told me "was to be a gambler. I had an attitude to keep pushing to the limits, to race from the front as fast as I possibly could. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't." Twelve times it really worked, as he broke that many world records. But to my favourite yarn of all, one more time for the road. For Ron ...

In June 1966, Clarke was invited to an athletic meeting in Prague by Emil Zatopek, the great Czech distance runner of the 1950s. Zatopek was to distance runners what Sir Edmund Hillary was to mountaineering - the first man through the barriers for all the others to follow - and he had long been an admirer of Clarke's style. After the meeting, the four-time Olympic gold medallist and national hero, guided the young Australian around Prague for the day, showing him fine hospitality throughout, talking about this and that, and the art of running in particular. That afternoon, he took Clarke to the airport, took him past the guards, right up the steps of the plane, before warmly shaking his hand and pressing a tiny package into his palm and whispering a few words. What the ...? Zatopek was gone. The plane door closed on him and Clarke was more than passing nervous. What on earth had Zatopek just given him? Was it drugs? Was it contraband? Was it some sort of message or something he had to take to the free world? Microfilm maybe? Clarke sat in his seat, perspiring a little. He determined that under no circumstances would he open the small package until he was back on the ground in London, at least on friendly, familiar territory, where he would be able to cope with whatever it was. But somewhere over the English Channel he could resist no longer. Looking surreptitiously over his left and right shoulder to see no one was watching, he fished the package out of his pocket and opened the little box inside. It gleamed back at him. It was an Olympic gold medal, the very same that Zatopek had won in the 10,000m at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. It was even newly inscribed, To Ron Clarke, July 19, 1966, with Zatopek's final words on the plane steps coming to him, "Not out of friendship, but because you deserve it". Bravo, Ron Clarke. You bloody well did. And you will be long remembered as one of the great gentlemen of Australian sport, a credit to yourself, your family, and your country.