Letter From Australia:Forty-nine years ago today, on August 6th, 1958, three Australian runners featured in a mile race at Morton Stadium, Santry, that became known as the race of the century. Those three runners, Herb Elliott, Merv Lincoln and Alby Thomas, are alive and well and doubtless would be pleased to take part in a whopping commemoration on the 50th anniversary.

Unfortunately, that anniversary falls two days before the opening of the Beijing Olympiad, which, outrageously or otherwise, is likely to take precedence. If Australian sports fans had their way, the Olympics would be moved. Who cares about beach volleyball? (Actually, Australia does: we win medals at it.)

But given that moving the Games is unlikely (Olympics people are quite precious), we'll have to settle for reminiscences of the Santry mile and its status in Australian sport. The race is probably not the apogee in Australian athletics history - that status would belong to Betty Cuthbert and the women's sprint team at the Melbourne Olympics two years earlier - but it certainly ranks as the high point in this country's middle-distance fortunes.

At one stage in the 1950s, five Australian runners had the fastest 10 times in the mile. Besides Elliott, Lincoln and Thomas, there was Jim Bailey and John Landy, who from the early to mid-1950s was considered the world's best miler.

Melbourne journalist Len Johnson, who is writing a book on Australian middle-distance running in the 1950s, says the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 played its part in inspiring this golden era; athletes dedicated themselves because they wanted to run well in front of their home crowd.

It's also worth noting that the 1950s was a prosperous decade in Australia, lending money and time for activities beyond the grim struggle of survival, and it was a time when African runners had yet to make their mark.

It was also the era that threw up an unconventional coach in Percy Cerutty, who was at his peak influence in the 1950s, and another coach, the Austrian Franz Stampfl, who chose Australia as his haven from the vicissitudes of post-war Europe.

Cerutty and Stampfl played their parts in the Santry mile. Cerutty was the coach of Elliott while Stampfl was Lincoln's mentor. When Lincoln overtook Elliott in the back straight on the third lap, led for 60 yards before Elliott regained it, there was great frisson.

Lincoln had played second fiddle to Landy in the middle part of the decade. No sooner had Landy retired than Elliott assumed his role, again relegating Lincoln to second.

Lincoln came closest to defeating Elliott during an Australian championships final in Perth, when the two approached the line together but Elliott just breasted the tape first. In all other races, Elliott was in command. Lincoln's feat in taking the lead at Santry was an audacious, if short-lived, move. But the main reason for the excitement was that the runners' coaches, Cerutty and Stampfl, despised each other.

Cerutty would now be called a self-styled lifestyle guru. At 50 years of age, he devised a spartan diet, read philosophers and began running more than decent times for the marathon. After becoming a coach, he put his runners through torturous training sessions in the sand dunes at Portsea, just south of Melbourne, in between tutoring them in the classics.

Cerutty was cantankerous, irascible, something of a nutcase. Stampfl, as a coach, paid mainly by athletics bodies, was part of the establishment. Cerutty resented Stampfl's gig, which included having the run of facilities at Melbourne University. In truth, Cerutty's personality precluded him from working under a traditional administrative body, but, like all loners, he wanted to be shown the support that his rivals enjoyed even if he was never likely to take it up.

In 1958, the Australian runners preceded their visit to Dublin by running in the mile at the British Empire Games in Cardiff, where Elliott won, with Lincoln second and Thomas third. Before Santry, a loose arrangement was made that Thomas would lead through two laps in the mile if, the following night, Elliott would lead Thomas in the early stages of the two-miles event.

More than 20,000 were at Santry for the inaugural mile meeting, mostly to see Arklow native Ronnie Delaney, the 1956 Olympic 1500 metres champion, who had beaten Landy into third and Lincoln into 12th in Melbourne, compete against the star cast.

Thomas led for two laps before Elliott took over. Lincoln made his Sisyphean burst in the third lap.

The bell for the final lap sounded at two minutes 59 seconds. Elliott then powered away with four runners in vain pursuit. The 20-year-old West Australian stretched his lead to 15 yards and was still on his toes when he crossed the line 10 yards clear in 3:54.5, slashing a phenomenal 3.5 seconds off Landy's world record of 3:58.0.

Lincoln was second, 3:55.9, followed by Delaney, 3:57.5, New Zealander Murray Halberg, 3:57.8, and Thomas 3:58.6. When it was realised that the first five had all finished in less than four minutes, everyone at the stadium knew they had witnessed a special event in the history of athletics.

The following night, Thomas built on the pace provided by Elliott to break the world two-mile record. The Australian contingent left Dublin as kings of the world.

The Australians' effort at Santry in 1958 was recently reprised, amid much less hoopla, when three Australians finished in the top five in the annual Billy Morton Mile, the race named after the man who promoted the 1958 race.

Queenslander Mitch Kealy won in 3:58.45, becoming the first runner in several years to win in less than four minutes, from Sydney runner Brad Woods (3:59.89), James Nolan of UCD (4:01.80), Colm Rooney of the host club, Clonliffe Harriers (4:02.18), and another Sydney runner, Jeremy Roff (4:03.22). Five Australians ran in the race.

Melbourne 49-year-old Graeme "Gus" MacDonald, a keen runner who made the trip to Dublin reported a low-key affair before 50 or 60 people. He reported warm hospitality and vivid storytelling about the events of 1958. They felt a certain pride on seeing the mural depicting the 1958 race in the Clonliffe Harrier's clubrooms.

The 50th running of the Billy Morton Mile will be a far smaller event than it might have been if not for the Olympics. But an Australian contingent is likely to turn up anyway.