The performance in question, watched by a capacity crowd, was Potgieter’s victory in the one-lap hurdles at the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff in 1958.

Pogieter broke the world record - not for the first time - in 49.7sec, only a few weeks after the American Glenn Davis had become the first hurdler to go under 50 seconds. A few days later he won another gold, in the 4x440 yards relay.

A car crash just before the Rome Olympics in 1960 nearly cost Potgieter his life. It happened in Germany, where he was preparing for the biggest race of his life, and ended a winning streak that stood at 44 at the time.

He was blinded in his left eye and told he would never be able to run again.

"I really felt hopeless, useless, melancholy, negative, absolutely down in the dumps, with no self-confidence to tackle the struggles of future life," he said.

"But, as the days went by and I came back to South Africa I studied the medical reports and realised that had it not been for the excellent physical condition I was in, I could have died."

Potgieter pledged to return to athletics and he made it, winning a national decathlon title in 1966 before calling it quits.

Potgieter had another handicap, one that he could never have overcome regardless of injury: his nationality. Much as he hated apartheid, he could not argue against South Africa’s banishment from world sport when it left the Commonwealth in 1961 and was kicked out of the Olympic Movement in 1964.

After Potgieter’s relay gold in Cardiff no South African would win a Commonwealth Games track title until 2002, by which time the country had a black President, a new anthem, a multi-racial team and a new outlook on life.

Potgieter took risks and broke laws in working with black coaches and athletes during the decades of South Africa’s sporting exile.

He was an unlikely campaigner against apartheid, given his background. He was an Afrikaner policeman, and a sporting hero to the white establishment.

"Through my international participation and experiences with black athletes abroad and locally since 1956, I strongly came under the impression that our apartheid system was inhuman," he said.

"Our thinking in the sporting world, from a human point of view, was far ahead of our politicians. The majority wish from the sporting fraternity in South Africa, by far, was that non-whites should absolutely have the same rights and opportunities as whites."

Over a period of many years he would use his status to help victims of discrimination. In 1973 he broke the law when he appointed a black coach, James Mokoka, to a full-time senior post at the National Sports Foundation.

When he was in trouble for his actions Potgieter turned to an old acquaintance, Pik Botha, an influential politician who would later become South Africa’s Foreign Minister. "He contacted the chairman of the Pretoria Municipality Board who then informed me to carry on but to keep it quiet. Sometimes it’s who you know..."

In the same year as Mokoka’s appointment, 1973, Potgieter was thrown out of a Government minister’s home when he went to discuss the setting up of a non-racial academy. In 1989 he was finally able to set up the Olympic Academy of South Africa, and he organised the national youth sport programme to celebrate the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994.

He then founded Altus Sport, a non-profit organisation whose aim is to use sport to provide a better lifestyle for disadvantaged young men and women, and is still a director.

Potgieter did so much for sport in South Africa on and off the track he was voted his nation's Athlete of the 20^th Century.

Looking back to Cardiff in 1958 he said, "It’s so long ago, yet it’s still fresh in the memory. The wonderful hospitality, warm applause and encouragement by the spectators, the condition of the track, my world record being the first one on the track, flattering and positive media coverage, great friends made, the outstanding atmosphere in and around the stadium, meeting Prince Philip, excellent all-round Games organisation, my personal best times, two gold medals... The Cardiff Games were the highlight of my athletic career, for sure!"