Time flies. Happy 40th birthday Craig Mottram. We celebrate by featuring your 2006 CG silver on Throwback Thursday.

Enjoyed this one, thanks

Yes, another great read.

Small thing about the crowd size- it was 100,000, but Ovett says "80,000 *Aussies*", ie, he's saying that there are that many people yelling for Buster, and 20,000 others in the stadium for someone else.

Are you going to celebrate Choge's dominant win here on his birthday?

The 800m+ GOAT front ran his own 12:56, and that turn of speed in the last 100 showed he was in sub 12:40 shape.

Interesting at the end of the video, it was mentioned that Craig Mottram’s elder brother was playing basketball for Australia against India and had scored 12 points for Australia in the match against India in FIBA basketball. I’m assuming that Craig’s brother might be even taller than Craig himself who is no midget at 6‘2“.

Neil Mottram, Craig’s brother was/ is a professional basketball player for Australia and also played professionally overseas in many countries including Sweden, his height is 6‘9“. Duel national British and Australian.

https://www.proballers.com/basketball/player/21399/neil-mottram

12:56 with a very fast finish and sub-12:40 are very different things.

Time for him to get in shape and tear it up on the masters' circuit.

Great review, Jonathan. I watched that race live, and the atmosphere was incredible. Such insightful commentary from Steve Ovett too.

Awesome recap of the race! And props for going into such great detail on Choge's breakthrough race. It still blows my mind that running a 4-minute final 1600 is sometimes not enough for victory.

Some day, I hope we get to see a tall runner like Mottram have a long, healthy career. Guys like Mottram and Wheating just have so many durability issues. But they show such flashes of brilliance that I retain hope that we will one day see a Usain Bolt type of distance runner... an unusually tall, powerful runner who makes the rest of the field look helpless due to their inferior genetics. That would be a lot of fun!

Why doesn't rojo ever say "I was bored so I read a book"?

Mo Farah was in this race and he was 23.

Can someone please post a link to Mottram’s interview with Carol Lewis after winning the Prefontaine 2 mile? I don’t think she was expecting one of his answers.

I was actually at this meet and watched this race. The stadium was rocking.

The entire meet was fantastic, the city, the spectators, the atmosphere, etc. was the best major championship I've been to besides the European Champs in Berlin and World Champs in Helsinki. Way better than various Olympics and World Champs I've attended.

Some Diamond League meets, etc. have been as good for a one day event, but for a multi-day championship they put on a good show in Melbourne.

Why was his nickname "Buster"?

What is he doing currently ...40yo; moved on to do what ..?

LetsRun.com wrote:

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2020/06/i-was-bored-so-i-watched-craig-mottram-battle-augustine-choge-in-melbourne-at-the-2006-commonwealth-games/

White man gets silver, and yet you write an article about him and not the winner

Great memories.

Chance to plug another Aussie classic , Andrew Lloyd (great mate btw) in 1990 vs Ngugi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXV68wJw1Gc

I am Sam wrote:

Great memories.

Chance to plug another Aussie classic , Andrew Lloyd (great mate btw) in 1990 vs Ngugi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXV68wJw1Gc

Yes, if you want another story about an epic Aussie victory at the Commonwealth Games, I wrote a story all about Andrew Lloyd's run to celebrate the 25th anniversary back in 2015.