Personal details
Full Name:
- John Edward Lovelock
Lifetime:
- 5 Jan 1910–28 Dec 1949

One of our greatest athletes, Berlin Olympic gold medallist Jack Lovelock led a remarkably full life before his tragic death in 1949, just a few days shy of his 40th birthday.
Read more...Events In History
-
6 August 1936Lovelock wins 1500-m gold at Berlin
Jack Lovelock won New Zealand’s first Olympic athletics gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in a race witnessed by 120,000 spectators – including Adolf Hitler. Read more...
-
15 June 1935Lovelock wins ‘Mile of the Century’
The Ivy League Princeton University hosted an annual elite mile race during the 1930s. New Zealand medical student Jack Lovelock, who had set a world record there in 1933, was invited to return in 1935 to run in what became known as the ‘Mile of the Century’. Read more...
-
15 July 1933Lovelock smashes world mile record
Jack Lovelock's run at Princeton University broke Jules Ladoumegue’s record for the mile by 1.6 seconds. The race was dubbed the 'greatest mile of all time' by Time Magazine. Read more...
-
Main image: Jack Lovelock breaks mile record
A cutting from the New York Sun newspaper, showing Jack Lovelock just after he had broken the world mile record in 1933