Athletics Australia wants medals awarded to Ian Campbell and Shirley de la Hunty

AUSTRALIANS love to win, but they’re going to extraordinary lengths to prove they were winners decades ago, even if the record books don’t agree.

**This picture has a scanned reverse - see associated content at the bottom of the details window** Shirley Strickland, track runner.

35 YEARS is a long time to hold a grudge. But that’s understandable when the people you’re begrudging are the ones who have denied you the thing you crave most; an Olympic medal.

Athletics Australia has asked the IAAF and the International Olympic Committee to retrospectively award gold and bronze medals to two athletes they believe were wrongfully denied places on the podium due to judging errors. And with the help of modern science, they can prove it.

Ian Campbell competed in the triple jump at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and celebrated after his final jump of 17.50m because it was enough to secure him gold, beating the then-leading distance of 17.35m. However, he was fouled for allegedly scraping his foot at takeoff, and his dream was crushed.

There were no independent officials at the event, only Soviet functionaries who rebuffed Campbell’s protests.

Recently, biomechanic experts at Melbourne’s Victoria University conducted an independent study that concluded Campbell did not scrape his foot, and that his jump was a new Olympic record that should have earned him the gold medal. The report has been endorsed by Australian and international experts.

Athletics Australia president David Grace said the move to award Campbell a medal, even though it’s 35 years late, is about justice.

“We just want justice for our athletes. Ian Campbell ought to be recognised as an Olympic gold medallist,” Grace said. “I was a jumper, we all knew about this injustice to Ian. When I took over I wanted to fix this.”

Campbell revealed how much that decision weighed on his mind both at the time and in future years.

Campbell argues with the judges over his result.

“In terms of my athletic life, it was a catastrophe,” Campbell said.

“It is satisfying that the scientists have proven how far I jumped, that I didn’t scrape. I am so appreciative David and AA recognise that and are pushing this...people like Carl Lewis and Sergei Bubka, Seb Coe, they all know the story, they would mention it to me and say it was an outrage.

“My career ended just over 18 months later from an ankle injury. I was done at 24 so that issue weighed heavily on me.”

The now 58-year-old isn’t the only athlete Athletics Australia wants to help. The sport’s governing body is also calling for an investigation into the women’s 200m final at the 1948 London Olympics in which Australian Shirley de la Hunty (nee Strickland) ran fourth.

Officials back then used the naked eye to determine her placing, not bothering to check the photo-finish footage. However, when this footage was examined more closely decades later, it revealed that de la Hunty came in third, meaning she should have had a bronze medal to add to her collection.

“This only further enhances Shirley’s status as one of Australia’s greatest ever athletes,” Grace said.

A statement by Athletics Australia read: “Advances in science over time have allowed sporting organisations to discover and detect errors in results that have occurred many years in the past”.

“To correct these errors, even after so many years, is the just and right thing to do.”

Grace said the very nature of the Olympics meant the athletes should be justly rewarded.

“The nature of sport is to ensure fairness and that includes fairness in judging,” said Grace.

“The Olympic Games is meant to be the pinnacle of sporting achievement sporting fairness and everyone being on a level playing field.

“We just want that fairness and justice for our athletes.”