Ron Clarke, an Australian middle- and long-distance runner who broke 17 world records, some by huge margins, in the mid-1960s but never won an Olympic or British Commonwealth gold medal, died on Wednesday in Gold Coast, Australia, where he had recently been mayor. He was 78.
The Gold Coast City Council confirmed the death, giving the cause as kidney failure. He had also been treated for heart disease after sustaining permanent heart damage in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
Clarke almost always ran from the front, which was often his undoing. Still, from 1963 through 1970 he won 202 of 313 races, ranging from a half-mile to the marathon (26.