Merv Lincoln was a star athlete of his time content to be second-best to champions like Herb Elliott

MERV Lincoln, one of the pioneers of the four-minute mile, once smashed the world record by more than a second — but didn’t even win the race. Herb Elliott ran even faster.

Herb Elliott leads the field during the third lap of his world record-breaking mile in Dublin. Following Elliott is Merv Lincoln Picture: AP

MERV Lincoln, one of the pioneers of the four-minute mile, once smashed the world record by more than a second — but didn’t even win the race. Herb Elliott ran even faster.

Elliott always did.

Lincoln, who died in Melbourne last weekend aged 82, enjoyed a long rivalry with Elliott more than half a century ago but could never beat him. Not that there was any shame in that — nobody could. Elliott, the 1960 Olympic gold medallist, retired at 22 having never lost a race over a mile or 1500m.

Lincoln was the third Australian, behind John Landy and Elliott, and the 11th in the world, to break four minutes for the mile, once one of sport’s most formidable barriers.

Born in Leongatha and raised in Wodonga, Lincoln came to prominence in time for the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, where he finished 12th, but was regarded as the natural successor to Landy, who was about to retire.

But the emerging Elliott, four years younger, eclipsed him at the national championships the next year and every time they met after that, including the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff in 1958, where Lincoln had to settle for silver.

In Dublin the same year, in a magnificent race in which five runners broke four minutes, Lincoln ran 3min 55.9 sec, breaking Englishman Derek Ibbotson’s record by 1.3 sec. But Elliott ran 3:54.5.

Herb Elliott (right) just beats Merv Lincoln at Leederville Oval in Perth.

At that stage, Track and Field News — the sport’s bible — ranked Lincoln the second best miler in the world. But that proved to be his last appearance in the top 10 and at the 1960 Olympics he failed to qualify from the heats while Elliott stormed to glory with one of the most commanding performances ever seen.

The rivalry was intensified by the hostility that existed between Lincoln’s coach Franz Stampfl and Elliott’s famous mentor Percy Cerutty, both of whom were based in Melbourne.

Lincoln, a doctor, held no bitterness about his second-best status.

“There’s not the slightest shadow of doubt in anyone’s mind, including my own, that I was inferior to both Landy and Elliott in terms of winning and losing races,” he told author Brian Lenton in his 1983 book Through The Tape.

“I never beat either so there’s no point discussing who was the better.

“What I think is important is what you feel you got out of it and what it did for you as a person.

“The fact I was able to run against those fellows, I regard even now as privilege. It’s something my life would have been worse off for having not had.”

Dr Lincoln’s funeral will be at Trinity College chapel at Melbourne University at 11am on Tuesday.

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Originally published as Merv Lincoln was a star athlete of his time content to be second-best to champions like Herb Elliott