Cleaver's Games: March 10

Death, or the suspected smell of it, was the central theme of yesterday's blog and unfortunately it's not something I can get away from at the moment.

It's not a morbid fascination, but the first thing I read when I opened the Herald Sun this morning was a story about Games' organisers trying to drum up a crowd to the opening ceremony by inviting the dead (link below).

This, I thought, sounded interesting. Opening ceremonies, once the bane of every sports fans life who can't wait for the dancers to leave and the games to begin, have become bigger and brighter events every year.

Pyrotechnic wizardry, laser technology, digital dolby high fidelity quadraphonic sound systems, small girls waving ribbons - opening ceremonies now have it all. 

A real-life zombie show would really be something to write home about.

But it was the writing home that got Games' organisers into strife yesterday. Poor Margaret Vogt went to the mail box and saw a letter marked private and confidential addressed to husband Ron.

"I opened it and it started, 'Dear Ronald'," Mrs Vogt told the reporter. "It went on how Ron should not miss the opportunity to see this event live.

"I thought, well that would be good, but it's not quite possible."

Ron died in October 2003.

Apparently 40 families have complained that deceased relatives have been targeted in the direct mail campaign.

Surely that's taking the "gone but not forgotten" idea too far.

***

Today is the 50th anniversary of one of the great sporting achievements of all time. Unfortunately an Australian performed it so I will keep this brief.

At the Australian National Mile championships at Olympic Park, Melbourne, in 1956 they had to shut the gates early to guard against the crush of people who had come to see local butterfly collector John Landy in what was predicted to be a world-record, sub-four minute mile.

Instead what they got was Landy tripping over Ron Clarke with 600 metres to go. Thinking he'd spiked his head Landy stopped to offer assistance, the strong field by now more than 30m up the track.

Clarke told Landy to get on with it and run. So Landy ran.

In a precursor to Forrest Gump, Landy set off like the wind, passed the field before the home straight and stopped the clock at just a few seconds outside the magical four-minute barrier.

Last night, on the same track (though rubber, not cinders), I looked on as the world's fastest man, Asafa Powell, was strutting his stuff in the 4x100m relay and 100m.

In the relay he took the baton on the final leg well behind Australian Patrick Johnson.

Like Landy he gobbled up the gap in a matter of strides and won at a canter.

The only relevance of this really is that 50 years on the effect is the same: amazing athletic feats still have a jaw-dropping quality that's hard to beat.