John Walker 3:49.4 - 8/12/75

When he introduced you to those guys did any of them say Arch was their coach? I read an interview with Arch where he said he'd do a thing or two to help Rod out now and again but Rod's coach had always been his brother John. And this is the first time I've ever heard of a connection between Arch and Quax. A friend of mine was Quax's best man at wedding #2 and never heard of anyone coaching Quax other than John Davies.

The two big names I know Arch coached aside from Walker are Hamish Carson who ran the 1500 in Rio and Neville Scott who was bronze medalist at the '58 Commonwealth Games and made the NZ Olympic team in '64 at 5,000 meters.

If you can find a copy, “Kiwis Can Fly” by Ivan Agnew is a great read. It’s centered around that magical sun 3:50 season and really gives a bit of insight to walker, Dixon, quad, etc,

John Walker had the career that Jim Ryun wanted.

Bayi was the original pacer.....he just happened to finish the race! Dude was notorious for his 52-53 second 1st laps.

John Walker had the career EVERYBODY wanted....

He actually just introduced me to Quax. And no, Quax didn't say anything about coaching him, but he was the distance coach of the NZ Commonwealth team in 1978.

From Arch Jelley - Athletics New Zealand

Arch may be best associated with his long and successful time with Sir John but he coached dozens of other leading athletes during his career including 1988 Seoul Olympic 3000m runner Chrissie Pfitzinger, two-time Olympic distance runner Robbie Johnston, 1987 World Championship marathoner Hazel Stewart, 1990 Commonwealth 10,000m bronze medallist Barbara Moore, 1978 Commonwealth Games middle-distance representatives Dennis Norris and Alison Wright and former US mile record-holder Steve Scott, whom he guided to fifth at the 1988 Olympic 1500m final.
In 2000 following the death of his first wife he retired from athletics coaching only to return five years later after receiving a call from the mum of Kiwi middle-distance runner Hamish Carson asking for Arch to coach him. Arch agreed and at the age of 93 he successfully guided the five-time national 1500m champion to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

We had Dennis and Alison along with Arch over at our apartment in Santa Barbara, before we all traveled to Edmonton for the Commonwealth Games.

John Walker part start at 4:55. Never gets old.

I was a big fan of Walker in his day. He combined the rockstar appearance (Roger Daltrey maybe?) with being an Olympic champion athlete.

runnerstribe.com

JOHN WALKER AT 70: HERE ARE HIS 5 FINEST PERFORMANCES – PLUS OTHER HIGHLIGHTS & HIS LEGACY:

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Worldwide running and athletics media.

Link:runnerstribe.com/features/john-walker-...

Sadly, he has Parkinson's disease, but doing the best he can it seems.

In 1996, Walker announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. He has taken this life-changing news with incredible equanimity, typical of his attitude to athletics and life in general; he just carried on and has not let it hold him back. He has raised four children with Helen and continued to raise horses and run the equestrian shop. He was elected to Manukau Council for three terms and was later a councillor with the merged Auckland Council, until stepping down in 2019. The demands on Walker were becoming too much, given the stress of dealing with his condition.

Thanks. I thought it was so cool that he coached Hamish Carson at 93. I saw a fairly recent photo of him together with John Walker and he really didn't look all that much older than JW did.