Bev Robertson was the lost girl superstar of New Zealand athletics.
So what was the story behind this Kiwi sports mystery?
With the Olympics athletics approaching, we went in search of the former teenage long jump sensation, a schoolgirl Olympian who gave it all away at the age of 20.
The junior world record holder had already competed in two Olympics then promptly vanished in the early 1960s.
The west Aucklander - maiden name Bev Weigel - was so incredible that one of her records remains as the oldest on the New Zealand athletics books, more than 60 years after she set it.
Robertson's long jump style is still there for all to see on a wonderful colour film portraying the 1960 Rome Olympics.
Those Games proved to be her swan song, and six decades on she admits to still wondering what might have been, had she kept her athletics career going.
Now 80, and living in Northland, Robertson is a reminder of a golden age in New Zealand sport when remarkable pioneers allowed a tiny nation to punch above its weight in the toughest arenas.
She rubbed shoulders with the greats of her generation, like Peter Snell. They were part of a community of athletes who socialised together while also pushing each other to great heights.
But Robertson was a little different - the endless pursuit of glory was not for her.
She swapped the life of an amateur athletics star with the world at her feet for that of a mother and well-travelled educator, alongside her husband Les Robertson.
Robertson was just 15 when selected to compete at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, setting off a controversy because the Games clashed with her School Certificate exams.
The legend kept growing.
A year later, the little leaper set a world junior mark of 6.23m with an incredible jump at Papakura. This was only 12cm shy of the actual world record, held by a Polish athlete, and would have won silver at the 1956 Olympics. It has also remained unchallenged as a Kiwi junior record for 64 years. Her best ever jump was only a smidgen short of Kiwi superstar Yvette Williams' world record.
When we meet at her Kerikeri home, there is little immediate evidence of Robertson's amazing athletic life.
But in a spare room, she has laid out her precious New Zealand blazers and an enormous pile of newspaper cuttings which reflect her teenage stardom.
"I can remember the jump, it was a beautiful day at Papakura," she says, when I ask about the junior world record.
"For those good jumps you get the speed, you're relaxed."
It's a phrase which sums up what was the Weigel Way.
In NZ's Athletes of the Century, author Peter Heidenstrom writes: "Not for her hour after hour after hour of humdrum practice that was the making of (other Kiwi stars)…sport was natural, and fun, and a time for taking risks. It made her such an exciting athlete to watch."
Robertson agrees, telling NZME: "I did it all for fun. I just enjoyed athletics, mixing with the people. I didn't have any hate or that killer instinct."
The young Bev Weigel started off at the Lynndale club, in an era where hundreds of kids would flock to local parks around the country to try the various athletics disciplines.
In an archetypical story of the age, her training regime included a two-bus Sunday trip from the family's New Lynn home to Cornwall Park for stamina work under her first mentor Jim Bellwood, who was also Williams' coach.
After lunch at Bellwood's, it was off to Grey Lynn Park for specific skills training alongside the likes of Les Mills, Dave Norris and Roy Williams.
Bev's father, a builder, got permission to install a long jump pit with a trendsetting cinder run-up at Kelston High School, and she would train alone on week nights.
It's funny what the memory holds on to.
Robertson recalls chomping on rolled up pieces of bread as she and sister Pam, 12 years her junior, walked to athletics training.
Pam Weigel (later Hendren) – who lives in Tutukaka near Whangarei – went on to represent New Zealand as a long jumper at three Commonwealth Games. Spring heels seemed to run in the family.
Bev also recalls chasing sheep off and sweeping away the droppings before they could compete at rural venues like Kumeu.
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"We got no money…there was no professionalism. We got cups and saucers and clocks and plates," she says.
"I feel quite proud and amazed what we as athletes had to put up with back then, compared to now."
Her remarkable Olympic selection for 1956 involved intervention from the Minister of Education, who suggested she could sit her School Certificate English exam on the plane to Melbourne.
Young Bev thought this was a marvellous idea, as she could enlist the help of her fellow travellers. She eventually passed without sitting any exams, thanks to a comparative assessment.
The 16-year-old Robertson placed seventh in Melbourne, having been robbed of sixth through a countback failure, something which still frustrates her.
"What stands out most? Undressing before 110,000 people," she says.
"By accident I pulled up my track suit and running top at the same time and stood there in my bra before the long jump.
"I quickly pulled it down so I don't know how many people saw although I think my dad did…oh, it was so embarrassing.
"Apart from that – there was the immensity of the whole thing. It was amazing…and nerve racking."
Her risk-taking desire to land the perfect leap led to a series of no jumps at the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, where she was the heavy favourite. A week later, she broke the British all-comers record in London.
Her most vivid Olympic memories are from Rome in 1960, where she placed 10th. These include bumping into Cassius Clay – later Muhammad Ali – while walking around the village.
"He said 'Hello New Zealand"," she recalls of the legendary boxer.
"The atmosphere was amazing in Rome – the stadium was beautiful, and even the warm up ground had the most beautiful statues.
"But my favourite memory of Rome was sitting in the bus next to Peter Snell on the way to the stadium.
"I asked Peter how he thought he would go. In his very quiet voice, he said 'I think I'll win'. That is a very special memory."
And win he did, in the 800 metres, the prelude to his double Olympic gold four years later.
There's little doubt that with so much experience under the belt already, a still young Bev was an Olympic medallist in the making.
But she was already heading in another direction.
A wedding dress was purchased in London, the headgear in Rome. Bev and Les had three children, Kirsten, Kim and Greg, and they led a nomadic life as school teachers overseas, before settling in Northland.
In an iconic moment representing her new direction, she cut up her Olympic walk-out uniform to make a dress for little Kirsten.
Her dedication to and love of athletics never waned though as she coached school kids in New Zealand, Canada, Fiji and Australia.
There have been some tough times over the past decade.
Les passed away in 2012, and four years later Greg's partner Deanna Trevarthen, one of New Zealand's youngest asbestos cancer sufferers, lost a tough fight with her illness.
Two years ago, daughter Kim – who had a brain tumour – passed away in Darwin.
There are still some old athletics comrades such as Norris who keep in contact and Robertson's second coach, the 91-year-old Russ Hoggard, still guides kids at North Harbour, despite recent illness.
Robertson's own mentoring career includes using her athletics knowledge to help local football teams and players, male and female.
You can hear the pride in her voice when she talks about one of her protégés, the 24-year-old Botille Vette-Welsh from Kaitaia, playing fullback for the Sydney Roosters in the NRL women's competition.
It begs the question: does Robertson regret quitting athletics so early, when she could easily have chased medals at many more Olympic and Commonwealth Games?
"Yes, I did miss it," she says.
"I guess way back then people got married at a younger age and had their families soon after.
"In those days women were more home bodies than today they were expected to stay at home looking after husband and children etc. although I bucked that system by teaching in Fiji after we got married.
"When we came back to Auckland I talked to my coach, decided to give it a go for the 1962/63 season and was getting quite fit. Then I got pregnant with Kim, and that was the end of that.
"Nowadays I guess it would have been a short break before returning to training...how times have changed.
"I still love the Olympics - everything except boxing - and I'm often asked to go to schools to give talks. I love doing that.
"Sometimes I wish I'd kept going, but family has been my whole life."
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