It was on the home stretch when the famed black singlet of New Zealand hit the lead in the men's 10,000m race at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch.The man wearing that singlet, Dick Tayler was a potato farmer from Timaru. The night before the race, he had knocked back three jugs of beer with his coach, the legendary Arthur Lydiard, and warmed up that morning with a jog on a Christchurch golf course.Now Tayler had the lead. He wouldn't let it go.As the 24-year-old crossed the finish line that hot late January day at Queen Elizabeth II Stadium, the hometown crowd chanted 'black, black, black' in celebration of the traditional Kiwi sporting colours. Tayler collapsed in exhaustion, and joy.This scrappy Kiwi farmer had beaten the British Commonwealth's best. New Zealand had a sporting moment it would savour for forty years.These days, Commonwealth Games moments don't rouse the same kind of attention, excitement or interest in Kiwis – or many others, really. We are now less than a year away from the Gold Coast edition of the Games, which due to start on April 4 next year.While the sun was never said to set on the British Empire, whose global-spanning presence inspiring the event, it looks like it may be about to on the Games themselves.Read the rest of this article on VICE SPORTS AUNZ.Dick Tayler's victory at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch remains a special moment in Kiwi sporting history. Source: Youtube.
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