The memorial service for the legendary Australian Olympian Bill Roycroft began in Camperdown on Friday in the straightforward style of the man himself.
The ceremony, held at the local golf club, was pure country Australia.
MC Robbie Lieshman thanked everyone for coming and told them where the toilets were located.
It was good advice, because Roycroft's family and his many friends had a lot to say about a man who, for the past 50 years, has held a special place in his country's Olympic folklore.
Roycroft, who died last weekend aged 96, led the Australian equestrian team to a gold medal in the three-day event at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
A farmer from western Victoria, Roycroft was 45, competing in the first of his five consecutive Olympic Games and had knocked himself unconscious and broken his collarbone in a fall in the cross-country section of his event.
Despite the injuries he remounted, finished the course and was taken to hospital, checking himself out against doctors' orders the next morning to ride a faultless round in the showjumping and secure Australia's first equestrian gold medal.
The Olympic success led to an illustrious career on the international equestrian circuit where Roycroft rubbed shoulders with nobility and competed against the world's best for the next 15 years.
When the MC asked any dignitaries present to come forward to the front seats, no one took up the offer.
Mr Lieshman told the crowd they had come to honour a member of their community and of their golf club.
"He was a great man," he said.
He spoke of a man who had left school at 14 and spent the next two years breaking in horses, two more milking cows and a couple more as a shearer.
A man who served in New Guinea in WWII, who took up one of the blocks of farmland to which returned soldiers were entitled and became one of the finest horsemen Australia has known.
"He worked, he went to war, came home, got a block of land and won a gold medal," Lieshman said.
Roycroft's sons Barry, Wayne and Clarke, all of whom competed at Olympic Games alongside their father, filled some of the gaps.
Barry told how his father had only taken up showjumping and eventing after retiring from polocrosse and of the fondness he had for his Wednesday night whisky-drinking sessions with his mates.
He thanked everyone who had looked after him during his later years and he thanked the barber who cut his father's hair for free.
Wayne, who rode with his father at the 1976 Montreal Games, spoke of an "amazing man".
"We always felt safe when he was around; we knew no one could harm us if he was there," Wayne said.
Third son Clarke, also a Montreal Olympian, said his father didn't mind expressing himself plainly.
"He hated bludgers," Wayne said.
He mentioned that news of his father's death had been carried in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Times in London.
"The prime minister would be lucky to get her name in any of those papers," he said.
The crowd at the Camperdown Golf Club also heard from Neale Lavis, the only surviving member of the Rome three-day team and from Wayne Roycroft's ex-wife Vicki, Merv Bennett and David Green, also Olympians.
After about 90 minutes of eulogising and story-telling, Barry Roycroft then asked anyone else who wanted to offer a memory of his father to step up.
There were so many he suggested a pause for lunch and a drink.
Then they started again.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Olympian Bill Roycroft sent off in style - Yahoo!7
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