Cliff Young (athlete)

Albert Ernest Clifford Young OAM, known as Cliff Young, was an Australian athlete from Beech Forest, Victoria, born on 8 February 1922 and died on 2 November 2003. A farmer who grew up on a family sheep farm of about 2,000 acres, he ran a 16 kilometre race in Melbourne in 1979 at the age of 56 and then the Melbourne Marathon in 3:21:41. In late 1982 he abandoned an attempt on the world record for 1,000 miles just after the halfway point. In 1983, at the age of 61, he won the inaugural Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon over 875 kilometres, arriving in overalls and work boots, staying awake to run without sleeping after the other runners stopped to rest, and finishing ten hours ahead of the runner in second place.