Stan Lay

“Stan Lay may have been the finest natural javelin thrower the world has ever seen,” is the informed judgment of historian Peter Heidenstrom, who gives two pages to Lay in his Athletes of the Century (1992), and ranks him first all-time among New Zealand javelin throwers.

Lay’s is a story of long-term success – gold and silver medals in three British Empire (now Commonwealth) Games over twenty years; twelve national titles over a period of twenty-four years (with five years out for World War 2); and a best throw that lasted 26 years as the Commonwealth record, 29 years as British all-comers record, and 31 years as the New Zealand record. 

It is also a story of opportunities missed. Lay’s phenomenal 67.89m to win the English title in 1928 was the world’s second best of all-time. He went on to the Olympic Games in Amsterdam as hot favourite, since the Finnish world record holder was injured, but failed in three qualifying throws to make the top six who went forward to the final rounds. Heidenstrom’s account says he took the qualifying rounds too easily, and threw while still wearing his tracksuit. The eventual winning throw (66.60m) was more than a metre short of Lay’s performance in London. 

He made some amends by dominating the event at the first British Empire Games in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1930. His 63.13m was a huge twelve metres ahead of second place, and was done in rain on a wet grass run-up.  Billy Savidan in the six miles was New Zealand’s only other athletics medallist.

Lay then missed the 1932 and 1936 Olympics, and the 1934 British Empire Games because he could not afford the time away from work. Even in an era of rising standards in Europe, his 1928 best would still have put him top six in Berlin in 1936. But athletics in New Zealand was extremely amateur in those days. Living in rural Taranaki, Lay also missed some national championships. He was virtually un-coached and even untrained.

“I didn’t really train. I played cricket. I read the odd book about athletics but there wasn’t much around,” he said.

“Given a term or two in Finland, I believe he could have broken the world record, and not only once,” is Heidenstrom’s estimate. With better guidance in 1928, New Zealand’s first athletics Olympic gold medal might well have been part of this strangely uneven legend.

Stanley Arthur Lay was born in New Plymouth in 1906. He emerged as an athlete with stunning suddenness, when he was 21, and threw so far at the Australia and New Zealand Championships in Wellington, within 12cm of the known world record, that officials disallowed the mark. His later performances show that it was almost certainly valid, although possibly helped by Wellington’s wind.

Not notably big by modern standards, at 1.78m/5ft 10in, Lay was described at the time as being loose-limbed with long arms, which fits his exceptional natural talent for the event. Among many stories about his remarkable throwing ability, one still current in Taranaki tells how he once threw a cricket ball far beyond the best of the visiting English cricket team in a competition in 1930.

He spent his working life as a sign-writer in Stratford, Taranaki. While young and unmarried, he managed to get away for the five months that it took to travel by sea to London and Amsterdam and compete in the 1928 Olympics, but the Great Depression struck, and after 1930, his next international opportunity was the 1938 Empire Games at Sydney. He won the silver medal in a close contest between the top two, with 62.21m.  

“I missed many championships because I was married and had young kids. I couldn’t afford the time away from my sign-writing business,” he said.

Lay nevertheless retained a lifelong love of the sport that had given him such mixed rewards. He resumed competition after World War 2, won three more New Zealand titles in his 40s, and was still top pick, at 43, for the 1950 Empire Games in Auckland. There, he was appointed to read the Games oath on behalf of all competitors, a duty that he said gave him his “biggest concern.” He placed sixth in 53.44m, close behind team-mate Claude Clegg in fifth, the only New Zealander who ever beat him.

After retirement from competition, in improving economic times, Lay served for many years as a field events official, including twenty years as chief field judge at the National Championships. He attended major meets up to the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland. He was awarded the MBE in 1988 and was in the first class of inductees into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1990. He died in 2003, age 96.

Written by Roger Robinson