"Very few people go through life without making an enemy or two," he added.

"Harry comes from one of the toughest  businesses of all, yet everywhere you go it is hard to find anyone who has an unkind word to say about Harry."

It had been Coates who invited him to become AOC official historian, with his book - Australia and the Olympic Games, first published in 1994, setting a benchmark for others to follow.

Gordon described the victory of one of Australia's finest, Herb Elliott's 1500 metre gold medal at the Rome Olympics in 1960, as "The race of his life", with the duo growing to know one another well.

"He was a beautiful man, and a wonderful writer, journalist and a good friend," said Elliott.

Gordon was one of the very few journalists to receive the Olympic Order and was also inducted into the Australian Sports Hall of fame and his wider achievements were also honoured with the Order of Australia.

Harry Gordon (left) pictured with IOC vice-president John Coates and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott ©Getty Images



We met face to face at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and what I did not realise was that he had needed considerable medical support just to get there.

Together we watched at the rowing lake in Beijing,where Great Britain and Australia fought toe to toe for gold in the men's coxless four, while, in the months before the Games we had been in touch by email.

When researching the history of the Olympic Torch Relay, I discovered that an Australian called "H" Potter had brought the flame ashore in Bari in 1948.

Our efforts to track down the mysterious bearer of the goblet of fire proved fruitless, but one example of Gordon's investigative ability came when he successfully located a person behind a memorable Olympic tradition, begun at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.

Before the Closing Ceremony, a 17-year-old Chinese-Australian boy called John Ian Wing had suggested that, in contrast to the formal march past seen at the Opening Ceremony, the teams paraded together without distinction of nationality when the Games came to an end.

"The march I have in mind will be as one nation: war politics and nationality could be all forgotten, what more could anyone want," he said.

Wing had refused to come forward at the time but in 1986, as the thirtieth anniversary of the Melbourne Games approached, Gordon asked in Time Australia "Where are you John Ian Wing? It is to be hoped that John Ian Wing will please stand up for history's sake."

Such was the power of the media that Wing was soon discovered living in England.

It emerged that he had been unable to afford a ticket to see the Melbourne Games but was later invited to the Sydney 2000 Closing Ceremony as a guest - all thanks to a journalist who knew his history.

Harry Gordon pictured being conducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame
©Sport Australia Hall of Fame



Harry Gordon first reported the Olympics in 1952, back then he went straight to Helsinki from his duties as a war correspondent in Korea.

"Journalism provides a most wonderful world of contrasts," he said later.

"Twice during my career I moved from covering a war to covering an Olympic Games.

"Each time I was coming from a savage battlefield where people were intent on killing each other and doing it pretty well, to an Olympic Village in which the overwhelming mood was one of peace and goodwill.

"The difference in atmosphere was profound, I didn't experience any Damascus Road conversion, but I have no doubt that those contrasts increased my appreciation and admiration for the Olympic Games."

Gordon's journalistic career took him all the way to the editor's chair.

In 1970 At the Melbourne News Sun Pictorial, he launched a campaign in support of seatbelts and could therefore be credited with saving thousands of lives on the road.

He was also Editor in Chief at both Herald and Weekly Times and Queensland Newspapers.

He attended the 2012 Games as guest of the AOC.

They were to be his last, but he was soon embarking on an updated history of the Australian Olympic Movement, a considerable undertaking.

In 2013, he was inducted into the Melbourne Press Club's Hall of Fame and barely had the Flame extinguished in Sochi, his new volume From Athens with Pride hit the presses.

It had a gold cover, appropriate in so many ways for an author who had in the words of his friends, lived his life as "a gold medal performance".


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