Wally Hayward

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Wallace ("Wally") Henry Hayward is a South African endurance athlete with a 60 year career. He has won the Comrades Marathon five times and completed the distance of around 90 km the last time just before his eighty-first birthday.

Contents

[edit] Background

He was born on 10 July 1908 and died on 28 April 2006 just a few days before the annual Wally Hayward Marathon.

[edit] Comrades Marathon

He won the race for the first time on his first attempt in 1930 at age 21 (the youngest runner at that stage).

Only twenty years later he competed again and won it from 1950 to 1954, except for 1952 when he choose to rather represent South Africa at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.[1]. In 1951 and 1953 (first athlete under 6 hours) he broke the down-run record, and in 1954 he broke the up-run record and became the oldest man to win the race at age 45 (later overtaken by Vladimir Kotov in 2004).

In 1988 he returned once again to participate. He beat half the finishers with a time of 9h44m. In 1989 he finished dramatically with just two minutes to cutoff and at age 80 became the oldest finisher.[2]

[edit] Other achievements

In 1953 he established records in the London to Brighton Marathon , the Bath to London 100-miler and the 24-hour track race.[3]

In 1938 he represented South Africa at the Empire Games in Sydney.

Hayward fought in North Africa and Italy during World War II and in 1942 earned the British Empire Medal for bravery for his actions near El Alamein in Egypt.[4]

[edit] Family

Married Gladys Catto in December 1934 and had one daughter, Gwenolyn in October 1935. In 1957 Wally and Gladys divorced. In 1971 Wally married his second wife, Bertha Bland.

[edit] Controversy

In 1953 he accepted a small donation towards his traveling while competing in Britain. The South African Athletics and Cycling Association declared him a professional, banning him from all amateur events for The ban was finally lifted in 1974.[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Comrades Marathon - SouthAfrica.info
  2. ^ Comrades' Wally Hayward dies - SouthAfrica.info
  3. ^ Comrades' Wally Hayward dies - SouthAfrica.info
  4. ^ [Biography 'Just Call Me Wally' ISBN 978-0-620-24241-7]
  5. ^ [1]