International University Games: 1933,Turin - Athletics silver in the 1500m; 1935, Budapest – gold in the 1500m. 1934 British Empire Games – gold in the 1500m. 1936 Berlin Olympics – gold in the 1500m.

A year before winning the 1936 Olympic 1500 metres title in the Berlin Stadium with an audacious and effective race plan, New Zealander Jack Lovelock had secured the gold medal at what was then known as the International University Games.

There was no need for ingenuity on this occasion as – at a Games held in Budapest – he beat home runner Mihaly Ignatz by almost four seconds as he came home for the 1500m gold in four minutes exactly.

At the 1933 University Games in Turin, Lovelock – who studied medicine at the University of Otago before earning a Rhodes Scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford – had a far harder task. He had taken on the home runner, Luigi Beccali, who had earned the Olympic 1500 title the previous year in a race where Lovelock had finished seventh.

The Italian took gold in 3min 49.2sec, with Lovelock – who earlier in the year had set a world mile record of 4min 07.6sec - earning silver in 3:49.8.

It later emerged that Lovelock had not been in the best of health during his preparation.

But his 1933 defeat would prove a marker for three years of outstanding success.

In 1934, Lovelock won gold in the mile at the British Empire Games, recording 4min 13.0sec. And a year after exchanging silver for gold at the University Games he engineered the victory for which he will best be remembered.

Facing an Olympic 1500m field that included the US runner who had surpassed his own mile world record in 1934, Glenn Cunningham, Lovelock – renowned as a sprinter in the home straight, made a cleverly disguised break from 300 metres out that caught out his opponents and finished a full second inside the world record - 3min 47.8sec. Cunningham took silver in a time that was also inside the previous world mark.