John Landy
Australian athlete (1930–2022)
John Michael Landy (12 April 1930 – 24 February 2022) was an Australian middle-distance runner and state governor. He was the second man to break the four-minute mile barrier in the mile run and held the world records for the 1500-metre run and the mile race. He was also the 26th Governor of Victoria from 2001 to 2006.
Family
The son of Clarence Gordon Landy (1900-1970), and Elva Katherine Landy (1906-1995), née Ashton, John Michael Landy was born in Melbourne, Victoria, on 12 April 1930. He married English journalist Lynne Fisher at Upper Beaconsfield on 30 October 1971. They had two children.
Education
He attended Malvern Memorial Grammar School and Geelong Grammar School. He was initially more interested in nature, and Australian rules football, though in his final year (1948) won the "Associated Public Schools Mile Championship" in a fierce race that resulted in his victory over P.B. Quin, of Xavier College, who was subsequently disqualified for his interference.
He graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science in March 1954.
Athletics
During his school years, Landy enjoyed watching middle-distance track events.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1353311. VIAF identifies the subject as 11327801. The Library of Congress control number is n86087097. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930, 2022, 1500 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Landy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.