Norman Read: Walking Into New Zealand’s Heart

Norman Read is sleepwalking. Not wandering like a zombie through the night, but walking in his sleep. It is just a few nights before the ‘Pommie Kiwi’ is to compete in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and he is dreaming...

Norm is bearing down on Russian Yevgeny Maskinskov, the man leading the 50 kilometre walking race. With L-bent arms swinging, head up, eyes forward, hips swivelling, the man in black comes up to the 45km mark and the Russian. With ease, he powers past both, leaving the Olympic field in his wake.

Norm's dream was not a case of sports visualisation - this is 1956 - but most likely a subconscious prodding of what he was capable of. An inner knowing. Others might say it was a prophecy.

But nobody predicted the outcome of that race - not even Norm himself. "I just wanted to finish in the first dozen" he told an interviewer the evening of his race.

In fact, the 25-year-old nearly missed the start. He was in the dressing room under the Olympic stadium, topping off his all-black uniform with a white neckerchief, when he found himself alone. The officials and other 20 walkers were gone, leaving Norm to make his own way through the rabbit warren to the track.

Just in time he made it to the line, where his panic was erased by jovial ribbing from fellow competitors. Norm took his place, the gun sounded and he began following his plan of walking at an even pace throughout the race.

"We had to do two-and-a-half laps of the track in the Melbourne Cricket Ground and I had set myself [a goal of] two-minute laps because I felt that was the sort of pace I needed to do to be up with the others" he says in a radio interview with Newstalk ZB broadcaster Murray Deaker in 1993.

Norm easily fulfilled his starting aim. "I led out of the stadium, which to me seemed crazy because I felt that any fool could lead out - it was leading in that really counted." Outside, he eased up a touch to get back with the pack.

It was hot that afternoon in November, with temperatures rising to 31 degrees Celsius. But Norm knew how to play this course - he had trained on it constantly in the six months leading up to the Games.

The determined new Kiwi, who emigrated from England in 1953, went to Melbourne to prove himself worthy of representing his adopted country. He did that with a walk-away win in September 1956, when he took the Australian 50km title and record. He bettered the latter by 20 minutes. Two weeks later, Norm learnt he had been named in the New Zealand Olympic team.

Talking to Murray Deaker 37 years on, there is barely a trace of Norm's ‘ooh-aar’ English accent - unlike the young man captured on tape by sports commentator Lance Cross in 1956.

"As it was an out-and-back course I was able to sit back a little bit and gradually come through" he tells Deaker. At 15km, he was in fifth position and determined to take it easy until the turn for home. "At half way I was third and shortly after that I was told that one of the competitors in front of me had been disqualified, which meant that I was second."

Inwardly, Norm was asking himself: "I wonder if I'm going to stay in this position?"  Then the Aussie spectators took up the cause. Realising that none of their own was in sight, they backed the next best thing - a Kiwi.

"The crowd of course, that were out watching, were very encouraging and they kept telling me I was doing well, that I was going faster than the leader." Norm found this hard to believe because he hadn't spied the evidence. "The sort of course we had was what I term a roller-coaster - you couldn't really see that far ahead because of dips in the road."

About the 40km mark, Norm took heed of the Aussie supporters. "I could sight the person who was in front of me and I was making progress on him." Then his sleeping dream began to come true. In real time he was a little ahead of his subconscious. "At about 42 kilometres I managed to get past him [Maskinskov] and went from there" he says.

Norm's wife, Megan, remembers her husband's take on that passing moment. "When he came up to the Russian, what he did was, so that the Russian wouldn't get a competitive sort of urge again, he crossed to the other side of the road so he was away from him" she says.

At 45kms - the magical marker of his dream - Norm was in the lead. He was also beginning to hurt.

Throughout the race, a hot north-westerly wind had been throwing waves of warmth at the competitors. Taking on-the-hoof sustenance from the final feeding station, Norm steeled his mind for the last 5kms. "I said to myself, 'Well, I've got to settle down and get on with the job at hand and get to the finish'. And that was more or less how it went. Fortunately for me I wasn't challenged once I did get into the lead and I just had to hang on... to the finish" he told Deaker.

Buoyed by shouts of "Come on Kiwi" and "Good on ya mate", Norm kept his pace steady, along with his gaze towards the looming MCG. In the stadium, a huge crowd of spectators sat awaiting the lead walker.

Megan Read takes up the story: "So, 117,000 people were all facing the entrance into the stadium to see who would come in first. Well of course as soon as the black singlet came in, 117,000 people just stood up and roared."

In New Zealand, people crowding around radios joined the shouts of jubilation as Lance Cross told them: "And there's the black uniform - and listen to that crowd." Over the airwaves came the sound of a raging sea, punctuated with whistles.

In the Deaker interview, Norm talks of what it felt like when that wave hit. "It's not easy to describe, but I must say that I was tingling all over" he says. But he still had to stay focused and keep walking to the finish line.

Let's go back to Lance Cross in Melbourne: "As he entered the arena, he looked as fresh as if he was just taking off, and he waved to the crowd as they greeted him. Now he comes down the back straight and around the corner and he's walking just as well, just as easily and just as fast as he was when he left the arena about four-and-a-half hours ago. And here he comes now adjusting to the straight proper, moving along at a beautiful clip and hear that crowd again" Cross says, the sea of noise like a shell held close to an ear.

"And that was N.R. Read of New Zealand winning the gold for New Zealand in the 50-kilometre walk... and as he crossed the finishing line he raised both hands in the air and waved to the crowd and immediately he crossed the finishing line he broke into a run" Cross says. That golden walk took 4 hours 30 minutes 42.8 seconds.

For people who watched that moment or recalled press photos of his finish, an enduring image of the man in the No 10 singlet will always remain in collective minds. Norm's smile. That pure-joy grin appeared at the stadium entrance and stayed on his face for days.

Immediately after his victory, Read cheered in his fellow competitors - Maskinskov, who was second in a time of 4h32m57.0s and Sweden's John Ljunggren, who bagged the bronze in 4h35m02.0s.

The man, who became one of Taranaki's sons, was embraced by the Melbourne crowd, which included a couple of good friends. Norm spied Wellington walking mate Don Thomson and Auckland runner Bill Bailie leaning over the fence railings and ran up to be hugged by the pair.

From the Read home in New Plymouth, Norm's life spread out on the table before her, Megan tells why the hug was so special. "Bill's a great friend of Norm's. Bill expected to be selected for Australia and Norm didn't. So Norm bought spectator tickets and Bill didn't and of course Norm got selected and Bill didn't get selected, sadly. So, they swapped places."

On the victory dais, Norm still grinned at the world. Then he stood with straight-back pride, his gold medal round his neck listening to God Save The Queen. There was some controversy over the anthem choice. New Zealand officials had sent the music for God Defend New Zealand to Olympic organisers a few months before the Games, but in hindsight the choice was apt.

Dressed in the distinct all-black uniform of Kiwi success, the British national song playing up the New Zealand flag, Norm was a perfect example of someone seeking a new life, but remembering his roots. And when a journalist asked Norm whether he was an Englishman or a New Zealander, the happy hybrid replied: "I'm a Pommie Kiwi." The label stuck, hitting headlines around the world. A cartoon by Lonsdale of the Auckland Star said it all: "Pommie Kiwi, Norman Read, Wins New Zealand's Fourth-ever Olympic Gold Medal... And Walked Right Into Our Hearts."

Norm's victory touched the world, including Caribbean nation the Dominican Republic. It marked his win by producing a 7-cent stamp picturing his walking win.

Norm himself was stunned by his victory. He told Deaker: "And the thoughts that were rushing through my mind: 'Here am I, the lad from Steyning in Sussex who immigrated to New Zealand, and here am I at the top position in the world on that particular day'. It was incredible and very difficult to accept and to believe. In fact after I finished that night I never slept, I just couldn't believe that here was I an Olympic champion" Norm says. "But I've said many times since, when I look back on it, I guess I was lucky. I happened to win an event one Saturday afternoon..."

Norman Read died of a heart attack during a veteran's bike race at Pirongia in the Waikato, on 22 May 1994. He finished his life doing what he loved best - competing in a sporting event.