Robert de Castella
Australian long distance runner
Francois Robert de Castella (born 27 February 1957) is an Australian former world champion marathon runner.
De Castella is widely known as "Deek" or "Deeks" to the Australian public, and "Tree" to his competitors due to his thick legs and inner calm. He holds the Oceanic record for the marathon.
Early life
De Castella is of French and Swiss-French descent. His family were part of both the French nobility and Swiss nobility. He was born in Melbourne, Victoria, the eldest of seven children. Sport was a way of life in his family – his father Rolet ran marathons in the 1950s. His mother Anne was a state-level tennis player. His brother Nicholas, took part in four World Cross Country Championships, whereas brother Anthony competed in running at club level for more than 25 years. Rob de Castella attended Xavier College in Melbourne where he was an outstanding track athlete and trained under Pat Clohessy from the age of 11.
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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 Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q728634. VIAF identifies the subject as 43245235. The Library of Congress control number is n84142054. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert de Castella” 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.