Joe (right) with Jim Peters when they are again in 1996, and Joe’s photo leading Vancouver’s career (photo through the McGhee family)
Joe McGhee: Tribute piece on this website in April 2015
By Peter Jardine, head of communications
Joe McGhee Is the Scotland team forgotten Commonwealth games Champion – win the marathon in Canada in 1954 in a Vancouver Heat wave.
Against all the probabilities, the summary (very short) of the events, does all those decades now in a new book written by man himself several years ago and now grateful.
It is a Scottish sports story that, in many ways, chimes with Paul LawrieThe victory of the championship opened in 1999.
Joe was not bad the favorite of the races in 1954 and, in fact, it was like a contender to the medal, only by the selectors of the Scotland team of the time!
Two English, Jim Peters and Stan CoxThey were the fastest marathon runners in the world at that time and aligned more with the expectation of medals than hope. The Canadian choice had advantage at home and two Australians and two South Africans were strongly imagined if the weather was warm.
It was exactly that, the races at the most popular point of the day at 12.30 pm, and a simple internet search confirms that SAuto August 7 In fact, it was the hottest day of the year in Vancouver in 1954 to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).
As to underline his state, Joe remembers being chosen for the Games of the 1954 Empire (Commonwealth) by the Scottish selectors under a ‘marketing’ strategy.
“I was the last athlete in all sports in the team,” he writes.
‘The closing argument in my favor seemed to be based on the reasons for advertising instead of a realistic hope of a medal. The comment was that, with me, the Scotland vest would be transported for two hours through the streets of Vancouver, while a sprinter could only be so, just for the seconds! ‘
How much more than two hours was the debatable point on August 7, as it happened?
Joe won the Scottish championship, indeed a trial and ran at the end of May to give the winner time to prepare for Canada, with 2:35:22 a new Scottish record. He was the young Champion of the Scottish marathon at that time at 24.
Meanwhile, his English rival in Vancouver, Jim Peters, established a world record in 2: 17.4 and the first man to go 2: 20.00 for the marathon (very considered a key time barrier in the 1950s). Peters broke the world record four times before the games.
Do you see what we mean that McGhee doesn’t feel like?
That happened later Could have been a Sport issue Question for the ages and in fact request some YouTube investigations.
At the bottom of the race, with an English partner Cox, having run to the ground (metaphorical) in the extreme heat and in a lamppost of Vancouver (actually), Peters was very clear in the final stages. More than a clear couple or miles, in fact.
But 26.2 miles have not finished until 26.2 miles are covered and 0.2 proved to be too problematic when Peters entered the stadium and it was a race as a Saturday night drunk at Glasgow. The authorities initially resisted the impulse to help him for fear of a DQ, but, in fact, the affected peters could not finish the race.
“The crowd had been surprised in the silence for Peters’s collapse,” Joe recalls in the book.
‘‘What will the next man be?‘It was the highest question in the mind when I entered the stadium. Not only did they know who would come next, so little information had returned to the stage.
‘I met Pandemonium. I have never recurring such reception. My ears appeared with the DIN while running along the track to become, at 25, the youngest marathon winner in the history of the Empire Games.
‘It was only when the call came to the victory ceremony that realized the great and unexpected unexpected nature of my achievement. I stop on the way to the stage to congratulate Roger Bannister Who had won the same afternoon in the miraculous mile against John Landy (Well it is worth YouTube to see).
“That victory ceremony with the Scottish skiing that went to High remained an unforgettable memory for me.”
Joe’s book available through Pitch Publishing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce5gorbuza8
Joe and Bannister later visited Peters at the hospital. The Scottish learned how close English had to die, he writes.
“The doctor told me that Hey never had such a dehydrated human being.”
The Pathe News clips place a great focus on Bannister Win – Landy was the only one athlete who had run below four minutes for the mile, and Jim Peters.
Over time, and after returning home in Falkirk, the ubiquitous approach is clear in the collapse of Jim, instead of the gold medalist, he irritated Joe to the extreme.
As he expresses it quite pointedly:
‘When recording 2:39: 36 I ran 30 seconds slower per mile than was capable (he ran 2:25 the following year). Peters obviously did not. A world record time was simply out of discussion that day. The objective of the exercise, surely, was to win the medal and each of us was chosen by our country to try to do exactly that.
“I managed to do it for Scotland. Jim didn’t do it. A ‘Glorious failure“It is very good, but does not disguise the fact that he handled an unintelligent career.”
So who was Joe McGhee?
He came out through a very small club in Stirling, St Modan’s AAC, and ran through Glasgow University Like and Hounds. Later he joined Shettleston Harriers and was trained by Allan Scally.
Serving at the RAF (in Turnhouse) in the countdown to Canada, that did not prevent it from adjusting to a regular 15 -mile lunch race.
He moved to teaching and conferences in later life. Osteoarthritis reduced his career, but that did not prevent him from using a bicycle at home and even a springboard to maintain physical aptitude. Joe died in 2015 at age 85.
Now, about ten years later, the family has worked with Pitch Publishing to get the book and, hopefully, share the story with a broader audience.
In Hogmanay 1953, Joe McGhee ran 12 miles. New Year’s Day 1954, Hey ran 30 miles. I was close to Bee selected for Empire Games at that time. But I wanted to make sure he was ready if he is chosen for Canada.
How did you celebrate on August 7? Hi, he danced until dawn in the closing ball and then, after attending the Mass at 6 am, Tok, an early train to the United States to visit Seattle with some of the friends of his team of Scotland (after having negotiated visits).
Before, the duration and after the 1954 Commonwealth Games Marathon, Joe McGhee was just champion.
The forgotten winner is available through Publishers Pitch Publishing
Tags:
Commonwealth Games 1954, Joe McGhee, Vancouver
