If you knew just one Australian distance runner as the year 1955 turned to Melbourne 1956 Olympic year, it was almost certainly John Landy. If you knew two, the other would have been Dave Stephens.
Stephens, who died in Melbourne on 5 November just a few days short of his ninety-sixth birthday, was almost definitively mercurial. His ‘bad’ was terrible; he didn’t do bad by halves. But his ‘good’ – that was something else altogether, leaving opponents and onlookers alike gasping for breath.
And either side of New Year’s Day 1956, Dave Stephens was very good indeed, beating a trio of world-record-breaking Hungarian athletes two times out of three as 1955 ended and then starting Olympic year by smashing the world record for six miles held by one of the greatest distance runners of all time, Emil Zatopek.
Dave Stephens ran in a World University Games and in the Melbourne Olympics, but the two months of December 1955 and January 1956 were the defining moments of his career.
For that brief period, it seemed he could have been anything. “He can win the Olympic 5000 metres,” proclaimed Mihaly Igloi, the coach of the Hungarian champions. With a temporary void of male Olympic hopefuls – Landy, who had taken 1955 off running, was still mulling over a return while talents such as Al Lawrence, Dave Power, Albie Thomas and Merv Lincoln were yet to blossom fully – Australians lapped up such a pronouncement.
Ultimately, Dave Stephens did not fulfil Igloi’s prediction. In truth, he went nowhere near it as injury, illness and temperament equally conspired against him. But he deserves to be recognised as a significant figure in Australian distance running. We haven’t had so many world record setters as to ignore any one of them.
In The Landy Era, this writer compiled a short pen picture of Stephens and a summary of his six miles world record and his races against the Hungarians. Edited versions of both pieces follow.
Dave Stephens ran for Melbourne’s Williamstown athletics club where his teammates included Helsinki Olympic 5000 sixth placegetter and Melbourne 1956 marathoner Les Perry, Melbourne Olympic steepler Neil Robbins and 1954 British Empire Games mile, three and six miles representative Geoff Warren.
At secondary school Stephens had been a handy sprinter, but he gravitated to middle and then longer distances. By February 1955, he was the Victorian and Australian champion at three and six miles.
Allied with his undoubted talent was an equal ability to confound. John Landy commented in The Landy Era that Stephens “was very erratic with his performances … when he wanted to he could really burn. He was a great talent.”
Joe Galli, the internationally known sportswriter for Melbourne’s Sporting Globe newspaper, wrote that a feature of Stephens’s running was his relaxation. “Seemingly, there is no effort to his running. He bowls along, feet barely off the track … virtually no back-kick.
“(A stride that) … is an extremely effective shuffle; it takes him along like a surge of flood water, winning him races against good men by astounding margins. Nothing appears to happen to Stephens in these surges; the tempo of arms and legs looks the same. Yet he is moving faster!”
Stephens had a milk round and was quickly dubbed “The Flying Milko”. Geoff Warren tells how his mates used to reckon the seven-mile round had several essential elements of training built in – running, of course, and lifting for strength foremost among them.
At the World Youth Congress Games in Bucharest in 1953 Stephens struck up a friendship with Emil Zatopek. He visited the champion in Czechoslovakia and came back with some written training schedules. Zatopek mentioned the young Australian in a 1955 interview on the emerging generation of track distance runners.
Stephens and the Hungarians
Zatopek’s comments were timely, coming as they did with the visit of Sandor Iharos, Laszlo Tabori and Istvan Rozsavolgyi as “Kings of Speed” to Melbourne in late-1955. The three, guided by their charismatic coach, Mihaly Igloi, had swept all before them through 1955 and 1956.
Iharos set world records at 1500 and 3000 metres, two and three miles, and 5000 metres (twice) in 1955, and at six miles and 10,000 metres in 1956. Tabori equalled Iharos’s record at 1500 before Rozsavolgyi sliced another fifth of a second from it. “Rozsa”, as he was invariably nick-named, also set a world mark for 2000 metres.
When Tabori and Iharos beat Stephens in the first of three races on the new cinder track at Melbourne’s Olympic Park in December 1955, The Age reported: “In their white uniforms, [the Hungarians] hung behind Australian distance champion Dave Stephens like two great birds waiting to swoop on their prey.”
Swoop they did that night, but Stephens memorably turned the tables in two more races before the Hungarians completed their Olympic familiarisation trip.
Melbourne athletics fans had become accustomed to seeing John Landy challenge an unseen world in a series of solo runs chasing a sub-four-minute mile over the previous two years: now they acclaimed Stephens “the Flying Milko” as he took on, and beat, the world’s best in front of their eyes.
The first meeting, over 3000 metres on 10 December, went to script, Tabori out-sprinting Iharos with Stephens some five seconds behind.
Three days later over 5000 metres, Stephens beat Tabori by 30 metres with Iharos another 25 back. The time was 27 seconds slower than Iharos’ world record set a couple of months earlier, but it was a convincing victory, nonetheless. “Stephens Now Among World’s Best,” trumpeted one headline. Igloi commented: “If he can maintain the same rate of improvement next year as this, he can win the Olympic 5000 metres.” Four days later, Stephens won again over three miles, a race billed “the decider”.
The Age ran a front-page picture of a happy Stephens with his arms around Iharos’ neck after the race. “Stephens is a truly great runner,” Igloi said. “Iharos was not at his best but we have no excuses.”
The race was as notable for bizarre changes of pace as anything else. It was slow, until Stephens threw in a 60-second lap coming up to two miles. He slowed again, allowing Iharos and Dave Power past. Seemingly beaten, Stephens charged back in the last lap, leaving Iharos shaking his head in wonderment at the finish line.
With his world record following a few weeks later on a cold and windy January night, greatness beckoned for Dave Stephens. But it wasn’t to be. Landy beat him into seventh place in the three miles at the Australian championships in March and Stephens only scraped into the Olympic team with a third place in the 10,000 metres at Australia’s selection trials in October.
Second place behind Al Lawrence over three miles at an Olympic warm-up meeting just outside Melbourne seemed to indicate Stephens had regained health, fitness and, most importantly, form. “Stephens will be in the first three in the Olympic 10,000 metres,” commented a watching Percy Cerutty – “or the last three.”
Unfortunately, it was the latter, or close enough to it. Stephens struggled home in twentieth place with just three – plus two non-finishers – behind him.
A sad outcome when set against his form the previous December-January. But Dave Stephens had been best in the world and few Australians can say that.
Dave Stephens returned for another tilt at the Rome 1960 Olympic team but injury again derailed his plans and he retired. His inconsistencies notwithstanding, he deserves to be ranked one of Australia’s great distance runners. Our condolences to his family and friends.
