Mike Ryan

A dogged, determined performer where no obstacle was too great, it is perhaps no coincidence that Mike Ryan’s finest accomplishments were achieved in unremittingly challenging conditions.

Defying the heat and humidity of Kingston, Jamaica to win a marathon bronze medal at the 1966 Commonwealth Games, two years later the rugged Waikato-based athlete also coped commendably with the oxygen-thin high altitude of Mexico City to win a momentous Olympic marathon bronze.

Sandwiched between the golden eras of Sir Peter Snell and Sir John Walker, Mike’s international successes have often been overlooked. Yet his medal-winning accomplishments – under the coaching of 1964 Olympic 1500m bronze medallist John Davies – should be paid due respect.

Born and raised in Bannockburn, Scotland, Mike joined his local athletics club in his early teens, where he emerged as a significant talent, winning age-group Scottish cross country title and the Scottish junior mile crown.

With a long-standing passion for the outdoors and also inspired by watching the feats of Sir Peter Snell and Murray Halberg at the Rome Olympics, Mike emigrated to New Zealand a month shy of his 22nd birthday in November, 1963.

Settling in Tokoroa and taking up a job as a mechanical fitter at Kinleith Mill he was quickly introduced to John Davies – whom he forged a close relationship.

Advised by John and following the Arthur Lydiard-style model – Mike, who also trained alongside Peter Keaney, a national steeplechase champion, and Bill Sutcliffe, thrived in the quality training environment.

“You learn a lot in groups, even if it is ambition,” explains Mike, now aged 78. “We had a training routes to die for – all off-road in the pine forest around the Kinleith Mil. After each training session we would go back to John’s house – I sometimes don’t know how his (first) wife, Jenny, put up with our sweaty bodies after a long run!”

Slowly making his mark on the New Zealand cross country scene, the prodigious racer made his marathon debut in Hamilton in 1965, finishing second in 2:21:33. Mike then returned to Hamilton to compete at the New Zealand Marathon Championships and in only his second race over the classic distance he placed second behind Dave McKenzie to earn selection for the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston later that year.

Experiencing what he describes as an “exhausting” trip to Kingston – via Hawaii, Los Angeles and Mexico before landing in the Jamaican capital city – he recalls waking up at 430am for the early start time of the marathon, held in oppressive heat and humidity.

The race started outside Sabina Park – the home of Jamaican cricket – before finishing in the National Stadium. A naturally curious person, Mike had learned from research carried out by English distance runner Ron Hill and Griffith Pugh, a British physiologist and mountaineer, the importance of keeping hydrated in the heat and for the first time in his career he took on board fluids during the race.

It was to prove a wise decision.

“I remember Ron Clarke, the great Australian athlete, raced away from the field but he was to drop out at around halfway,” recalls Mike. “Ron had won silver in the six-mile race behind Kenya’s Naftali Temu, who has torn him (Clarke) to pieces, and I think he had really suffered for that. When I saw him on the side of the road having dropped out through heat exhaustion that was a real fillip.”

Following Clarke’s DNF, Mike moved into third and battled on to win bronze in 2:27:59 – behind the gold and silver medallists; Jim Alder of Scotland and England’s Bill Adcocks.

“It was a great moment for me, and I felt a lot of pride arriving back to Tokoroa with a bronze medal,” he recalls.

His medal success in the Caribbean elevated him to a new stratosphere and just three months later he was invited to compete in the prestigious Fukuoka Marathon in Japan. Regarded at the time alongside Boston as the world’s leading international city marathon the experience proved unforgettable for the Scottish-born Kiwi.

“It was the exoticism of the marathon,” recalls Mike, from his family home in the Auckland suburb of Hillsborough which he shares with his wife, Marie. “The military organisation of the race was wonderful. The race was very close, I won with a sprint (by an official margin of just 0.6secs in a New Zealand record of 2:14:04.6 from Japan’s Hidekuni Hiroshima).

In 1967 Mike claimed the senior national cross country title and also represented his country at the International Cross Country Championships in Barry, Wales. The event was the forerunner to the World Athletics World Cross Country Championships with Mike snaring team silver and finishing 19th in the men’s senior race. Later that year Mike returned to the Fukuoka Marathon, finishing ninth in 2:15:41

After finishing second at the New Zealand Marathon Championship “in hot and humid conditions” in Whangarei in 1968, Mike secured selection for the New Zealand team to compete at the Mexico City Olympic Games later that year.

Delighted to receive the news via an announcement on television, Mike then set about the task of preparing for the Games which would take place at altitude of more than 2200m. To best prepare for the hugely demanding conditions, Mike was advised to arrive either six weeks before competition or a day or two in advance with the adopted Kiwi selecting the former option.

After initially being surprised by the effects of running at high altitude he gradually acclimatised to the conditions but just four days before he was due to compete he misjudged the height of the footpath and twisted his ankle.

“I think the New Zealand physio was away sightseeing at the time but an Australian physio treated me and saved my bacon,” he recalls. “He worked on it with ice and then I put my foot in an ice bath. About six hours later I hobbled around the tartan track and run/walked about 2000m to re-start my preparation.”

His ankle was still sore and swollen on the race day, but ignoring the pain he was instead fully focused on the race which started at the historic Zocalo Square.

Setting out in temperatures of 22c, Ryan started out confidently in the brutally tough high-altitude conditions. Yet as Mike recalls, with typical humour, his challenge was made unnecessarily tougher.

“I was part of the second group at the time when a television cameraman raced across the road with an electrical lead and we all had to jump over it,” he adds. “I thought it is hard enough to run 26 miles at high altitude and heat without having also to hurdle in the middle of the race!”

At 20km Belgian Gaston Roelants, the winner of the Olympic marathon test event and the 1964 Olympic steeplechase champion, led a group of three also containing England’s Tim Johnson and Naftali Temu. Some 17-seconds further back were Turkey’s Ismail Akcay and Ethiopia’s Merawi Gebru – with Mike close behind.

By the 30km mark the Ethiopian Mamo Wolde and eventual gold medallist emerged at the front but others were struggling as Roelants and Kenyan Naftali Temu, who won the Olympic 10,000m title just one week earlier, were bent double on the side of the road sucking in the air.

By 35km Ryan had moved into third (1:57:49) behind Wolde (1:55:54) and Kimihara (1:57:45). Vividly recalling the smells of tortilla and spices used in Mexican cooking along the race route, an unfortunate bout of stomach cramps meant Mike could not mount a strong challenge on the silver medal.

Nonetheless, defying pain in both his stomach and ankle he entered the stadium clear in bronze – although he recalls he was slightly confused to hear the crowd erupt at the precise moment he entered the arena.

“I thought the cheers were for me but they were for Dick Fosbury, the American high jumper, because it was the first time the public had seen the Fosbury Flop,” he says.

Mike crossed the line in 2:23:45 – just 14 seconds behind Kimihara with Wolde (2:20:26) winning Ethiopia’s third successive Olympic gold.

“On the podium I had a flood of memories of people who had helped me along the way including my English teacher at high school, Joe McGhee, who had won the 1954 Commonwealth Games marathon in Vancouver,” adds Mike, who has matched the accomplishment of fellow Kiwi Barry Magee, who had also won Olympic marathon bronze eight years earlier at the 1960 Rome Games.

Unfortunately, Mike believes his exertions in Mexico City, which earned him the 1968 Halberg Supreme Award, badly hampered the remainder of his career. “Never sick, but at times never well” and often lacking in energy he struggled to replicate his achievements on the international stage.

Mike did, however, go on to win the New Zealand six mile title in 1969 and in 1971 he snared the national 10,000m and 5000m titles on successive days. He continued to compete in marathon but it was after winning the 1974 Melbourne Marathon he decided to call time on his competitive senior career.

“I lost about a stone during that race and after returning home to New Zealand I was like a skeleton covered in skin,” he remarks. “Doctors found I had lost a lot of minerals, mainly potassium and advised me to drink an electrolyte drink. To this day, I still regularly take electrolyte drinks.”

Always a man with a full range of interest from operatics to mountaineering (he once climbed to Mt Everest base camp), Mike also) experienced a variety jobs. Besides his role working as a mechanical fitter he also worked at different times in health and safety, engineering, forestry and more recently as a landscape gardener. Now retired he still has a huge passion for gardening, where he grows a wide variety of fruit and vegetables.

Undergoing an abdominal aortic aneurism in 2017, Mike no longer runs. He has two children and two grandchildren but looking back with pride on his running accomplishments he believes two qualities in particular stand out.

“My application and my determination,” he says. “I was very proud to make the New Zealand team. I loved the sheer exhilaration of being outside and competing.”

Mike was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

 

Written by Steve Landells