Photograph of opening parade at the XIII Commonwealth Games: Ewan Murray to the right of the flag-bearer singing his lungs out; John third from the left waving to the crowd.

(There are also documents and comments about the Seoul Games in the page dealing with his first duties as an Admin Officer.)

 Training and Holding Camp: Correspondence and Recce Recommendations

With preparations for the Seoul Olympic Games having started as early as 1984, the pace and extent were both accelerated by the start of 1987.    Ewan Murray, also a Scot and also a member of Garscube Harriers, was Chairman of the British Amateur Athletic Board and almost immediately after the Commonwealth Games, sent the following letter to Masaki Kawato, President of the Nihon Aerobics Centre in Japan.

Ewan was, as was his wont, direct and clear in what the requirements were.   There was one wee hitch – item 13 in the letter above.   Mike Turner, Treasurer of the BAAB, picked up on a couple of points from the letter and sent the following letter to John prior to his visit to Japan.   The highlighting is John’s.

 

In addition to addressing some features from Ewan’s letter, we can see Mike giving John (whose first Olympics it was) some pointers as to what to look for while he was there.   John went to Japan and in April, 1987, wrote as follows to Ewan.

John at his diplomatic best was finding a way through what could have been a nasty confrontation between Ewan and the Japanese who had control of a quite superb camp for the British team.   Mr Kawato had however already written the following to Ewan.

The letter laid out the reasons for accommodating the Norwegian team and also pointed out (diplomatically) that other countries would be happy to go along if we were to turn it down.   The fact that John had already obtained the Japanese signature and agreement to the main requests no doubt helped smooth things over.   So how good was the Nihon Centre?   John’s report of 18th April runs to 7 pages and tells its own story.

 

Frank Dick, National Athletics Coach, said in the GB Olympic Bulletin: