No one can cheat Boyle out of this gong

There has been plenty of that in Raelene Boyle’s amazing life, but what happened in the 200m final at the 1972 Munich Olympics still lives at the forefront of her mind.

“I do remember the unbelievable pain I felt at the end of the 200m in Munich because I tried so hard,” she explains.

“Bursting with pain is the wrong way to say it but I felt like I was going to explode with pain.

“I was chasing her (Renate Stecher) down and I was getting so close, I was straining everything I had.

“She was falling apart because she was so much bigger than I was, she had bulk to carry.

“I was coming through, she was coming back and it was tight. There was just a few hundredths of a second in it.”

Stecher was a drug cheat, part of an East German doping regime which denied Boyle Olympic gold in the 100m and 200m in Munich.

SEE THE FULL LIST OF 2017 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Four years earlier in Mexico City as a 17-year-old schoolgirl, she’d won Olympic silver in the 200m.

While she went on to win 14 national titles and claim seven Commonwealth Games crowns over a 15-year career that saw her selected in every national team during that period, Boyle never got her Olympic gold.

In 1976 at the Montreal Games she finished fourth in the 100m and then broke twice in the 200m final while in 1980 she boycotted the Moscow Olympics.

“I have no regrets out of my career,” Boyle says. “I would have loved to have won a gold medal but I know in the back of my mind in some ways that I was the best in the world at the time.”

She holds no personal animosity towards Stecher, more anger at the system which conspired against her and the fact the International Olympic Committee turned a blind eye.

It has been revealed Stecher took Oral-Turinabol, an anabolic steroid which gave women high levels of testosterone, but it wasn’t placed on the banned list until 1975.

“I feel sorry for them because they didn’t have the freedom of lifestyle and weather and so many other things that I have as an Australian,” Boyle says.

“So I think I fall back on that often and say, ‘Well, I got so much more than Renata Stecher’ because I was given the benefit of freedom.

“What I don’t understand is that Germany has recognised that regime, there is museum over there about the whole thing … why haven’t the IOC stepped in?

“Why don’t they say we didn’t have that on our list but it was a performance enhancing substance so yes, we should actually modify things.

“Don’t take their medals off them as that is all they’ve got, just give us medals as well.”

Boyle grew up in Coburg, in Melbourne’s north, born in 1951 with three older brothers. Her father was a flight engineer and mother a parachute packer in Sale.

She initially thought about a career in cycling — her brother Ron was on the 1976 Olympic cycling team — as their father also owned a bike shop as a secondary business.

But her ability on the track was spotted early.

She’d just turned 17 when she was selected on potential for Mexico and didn’t start training for the Games until three months beforehand.

After winning a surprise silver medal she got the chance to meet Olympic great Jesse Owens.

“I was taken to the stadium and I didn’t know who I was meeting, then we walked around the corner and here was this little black man with a bald head smoking a cigarette.

“He said, ‘Hello Raelene, I’m Jesse Owens’. I’d always thought he would have been bigger but we sat and chatted. He apparently loved the way I ran which is why he requested to meet me.

“We sat and chatted about style, about covering the ground and speed, It was one of the greatest things that happened to me.”

It was 35 years ago last week when Boyle ran her final race in the 400m final at the Brisbane Commonwealth Games.

She hated the event but with encouragement from her long-time coach, Ron Dewhurst, made sure she ended her career the right way.

“I despised that distance so much,” she says.

“But I was determined to win as I really felt I owed my talent and I owed the public of Australia some sort of performance that would put a full stop at the end of my career.”

There was a different type of pain in retirement with Boyle first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996 but she used her profile to help others by becoming the face of the Breast Cancer Network Australia.

“I think my diagnosis with breast cancer has enhanced my life,” Boyle admitted.

“I didn’t think it would happen again and I found it tough going through the chemotherapy in particular but I think I fell back to my tough training days where you had to deal with the moment, you don’t look backwards.

“Always look forward as each issue happens, deal with it, fix it and move forward to the next one.

“Probably the last 20 years of my life has been like that as it has been one thing after another from a health point of view but it hasn’t stopped me having fun and making the most of it.”

Boyle lives on the Sunshine Coast, loves gardening and recently returned from a trip to the Antarctic.

She still keeps a close eye on her sport. Cathy Freeman is one of her all-time favourites, she has great admiration for Sally Pearson and loves Usain Bolt.

The recent drugs scandal involving Russia being kicked out of the Rio Olympics brought back some bad memories.

“I watch the sport and hold my breath when I see great winners as I think, ‘Gee, I hope you’re not a Lance Armstrong’,” she admits

Boyle compares the honour of being elevated to legend status in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame to when she wheeled her friend Betty Cuthbert into the Sydney Olympic Stadium as part of the opening ceremony in 2000.

“I put this in the same category as pushing Betty out into the Olympic Stadium. I didn’t think I would ever get that buzz again, it’s a nice buzz.”

SPORT AUSTRALIA HALL OF FAME

THE 2017 INDUCTEES

LAUREN BURNS: Olympic taekwondo gold medallist

STEVE HOOKER: Olympic pole vault gold medallist

BRAD McGEE: Olympic cycling gold medallist

TROY SACHS: dual Paralympic wheelchair basketball gold medallist

FRANK PONTA (deceased): Paralympic pioneer as an athlete and coach

TONY LOCKETT: AFL’s greatest goalkicker

DEBBIE HANDLEY CUMMINS: water polo great

Dr GRACE BRYANT: Olympic teams sports medicine