In 1983, Cliff Young, a 61-year-old potato farmer, won the Sydney to Melbourne ultramarathon. He was a teetotaler, a virgin, and lived with his mother in the Otway Ranges of Victoria. His victory is so deeply etched in the collective memory of Australians that, more than 40 years later, his name still evokes memories in generations of Australians.
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03-25, 2025As Young approached the finish line in Melbourne, leading the second-place runner by 50 kilometers, almost every camera in the country was focused on him. It seemed unbelievable that a stooped, sixty-something man in trousers could defeat some of the world's best ultramarathon runners. The whole country was captivated, and many middle-aged men also began to dare to dream.
With that victory, Cliff Young instantly became a legendary hero. Songs and books about him followed, and his story was adapted into a film. While there is no evidence that the screenwriters of the 1994 film "Forrest Gump" had heard of him, there are similarities between the two. John Connellan, who was 28 years old at the time and the youngest competitor in that race, said, "If Tony Rafferty or I had won the race, it might have just been an interesting news story that would have been forgotten in a few weeks. But for someone like Cliff to do it, it really captured the imagination of Australians."
Young's victory was both uplifting and slightly comical, striking a chord with people. Australians pride themselves on the nation's sporting achievements, but deep down, there is a subversive streak that makes us inclined to support the underdog. We cheer for Cathy Freeman and Ian Thorpe, but we have a special affection for those unlikely heroes, those tortoise-and-hare champions, like Steven Bradbury, who skated from last place to Olympic gold after the other competitors fell like bowling pins. Cliff Young seemed to embody both the Australian spirit of rebellion and an approachable, non-threatening everyman, whom only the most hardened cynic could fail to support.
The Sydney to Melbourne ultramarathon was a marketing campaign for Westfield, and Young's victory brought publicity that money couldn't buy. Ironically, the company almost ended his race before it even began. Two years earlier, Westfield had issued a call to its marketing team for ideas that could make the shopping center company famous. Martin Noonan suggested holding a race between the Westfield shopping centers in Parramatta and Doncaster. But as race day approached, management hesitated after learning of Young's participation. Noonan said, "I was told, 'We can't have an old man dying on the Hume Highway in our race.'" He was told to resolve the issue, so he invited Young to jog to Melbourne to see what they were dealing with.
Noonan recalled, "We ran for about three hours and then started climbing the mountain. The conversation stopped. I put on some pressure because I was a pretty good runner at the time, but, damn, he was still right behind me. I thought to myself, I'm 27 and this guy is 61. This is a real freak." Noonan discovered that day that Cliff Young was a truly gifted runner, and that his impending victory was not as miraculous as a shocked nation saw it. In a sense, Young had been preparing for this race his entire life.
It is not entirely clear when Young began running for pleasure, but locals in the Otway Ranges had long been accustomed to seeing him jogging on roads and in fields. Colac, the nearest major town to his home in Beech Forest, was 40 kilometers away, and Young would often run there and back. Because it rained frequently, he sometimes ran in gumboots, which strengthened his legs and developed an unusual running style—an economical yet deceptively fast style that later became known as the Cliff Young shuffle. He certainly looked like an eccentric character.
Journalist and friend Neil Kearney recalled, "People thought he was a bit mad, so Cliff didn't really belong. What he wanted was belonging." When Young was introduced to the long-distance running community, he found his tribe and never looked back. In 1978, he entered his first Melbourne Marathon wearing Fletcher Jones trousers and a thick sweater, easily winning his age group. He soon began entering longer races and built a reputation as a shrewd runner.
The renowned Irish runner Tony Rafferty recalled, "I knew him from the races he had been in. I said, this guy is tough. The public didn't know that, I knew it. I was pretty sure Cliff would finish that race, and it might even be a race between the two of us." Rafferty finished nearly two days behind Young in the Sydney to Melbourne race.
Young's age, while remarkable, did not cause as much surprise among runners as it did elsewhere. Long-distance running is a peculiar sport that does not necessarily favor the young. While sprinters peak in their mid-to-late 20s, long-distance runners often perform best in their mid-40s and continue to perform well thereafter. But in terms of mindset, Young may have had the greatest advantage. By all accounts, he was a happy and simple man who did not overthink things. This is a temperament well-suited to ultramarathon running, which is both a physical and a mental challenge. Long-distance runners must spend countless hours alone confronting their own thoughts and relentless pain.
Connellan, who dropped out of the race on the fourth day, said, "You go through very intense emotional highs and lows, really dark moments. Unfortunately, I'm a thinker, so I thought things through, and if you go down the wrong path, it's not good for you." Young seemed immune to mental anguish, able to put pain aside—the shoulder he injured in a fall outside Yass on the first day, and the damage he did to his feet, which resulted in the loss of eight toenails by the end of the race.
There was also Young's tactic—perhaps unintentional, some might say devious, but highly effective. The runners had a gentleman's agreement to sleep until dawn, but on the first night, Young's masseur mistakenly set the alarm, and Young woke up just after 2 a.m. He set off, eventually asking the staff why it was still dark after he had been running for hours. But by then, he was 30 kilometers ahead, and the sensible thing seemed to be to keep going. This simple mistake gave Young an insurmountable lead at the start of the second day and revolutionized the sport of long-distance running in the process.
After winning the race, Young experienced the kind of instant fame that has undone many, both in the past and present. But he took the attention in stride, seeming both comfortable with his success and not entirely convinced of his own luck. There was an almost scholarly air about this shy, simple man, but those who knew him insisted that he was a simple man, not a simpleton. If Australians were laughing at him, he seemed to be in on the joke. In some ways, Young represented a blank canvas onto which the public could project their own hopes and desires. To many, his austere lifestyle and unpretentious manner suggested an almost spiritual quality, and he quickly earned the nickname "the Gumboot Gandhi."
However, others had more practical concerns. The sudden attention did change Young's life, one aspect of which was that he began to receive attention from women, for which he was ill-prepared. According to Martin Noonan, love letters started arriving halfway through the race, and in the heady aftermath, Young was inundated with attention. Soon after, Young found a girlfriend, Mary Howell, 22, and they married later that year. The age gap of more than 40 years did not go unnoticed at the time, but looking back at news reports, the tone was entirely celebratory. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the age difference, the marriage did not last, and he was single again five years later. Neil Kearney reflected, "Cliff had had 61 years of being single, so forming a relationship was never going to be easy. Some people thought he turned into a silly old fool because of Mary, but that's life."
While Young never reached the heights he achieved in the Sydney to Melbourne race again, he continued to compete into his 70s, always attracting more media attention than any of his competitors. In the final years of his life, he was cared for by Helen Powers and her identical twin daughters, Paula and Bridgette, who had been providing him with logistical support since the 1990s. Known at the time as "Cliff's Angels," they are now better known as "The Twinnies," famous for running a seabird rescue service from their backyard on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. In 2003, Young died 20 years after his historic victory, but he remained so well-known that his funeral received national media coverage.
Fellow competitor John Connellan said, "He was a small man who became larger than life. Everyone who was alive at the time remembers Cliff like they remember the moon landing. Maybe both were equally unbelievable."
