His left shoulder shattered by a tackle while playing rugby in 1950, Murray Halberg turned to running as his main sporting pursuit with Arthur Lydiard as his coach. His first major games was the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver in 1954 when he was fifth in the mile and at the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956, he was 11th in the 1500 m. His breakthrough win came over three miles at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff in 1958, after which he became the first New Zealander to run a mile in under four minutes. In Cardiff he also finished fifth in the 1 mile race. He repeated his Cardiff tactics to win the 5000 metres at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960 within an hour of another Lydiard pupil, Peter Snell, winning the 800 metres. Halberg successfully defended his three-mile title at the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth in 1962. In 1961 he broke three world records (two miles, 4×1 mile relay, and three miles) in the space of 19 days. He built on his sporting success to set up the Murray Halberg Trust for Crippled Children (now the Halberg Trust) and established as its main fundraising function the New Zealand Sportsman of the Year awards (which are now known as the Halberg Awards). Halberg became Sir Murray in 1988 and in 2008 he was made a member of the numerically exclusive Order of New Zealand.
Personal Bests: 1500 – 3:38.8 (1958); 5000 – 13:35.2 (1961); 10000 – 28:33.0 (1964).
New Zealand