I would like to introduce Doug Chugg, The Athlete.
Doug had always enjoyed running and at 14 he joined the local Chelsea Athletics club. When he was 18, he heard about a weekend camp for athletics training in Portsea, run by Percy Cerutty. The camps ran over six weekends and Doug and a friend signed up. That was in 1955. That camp and meeting Percy Cerutty was to change Doug’s life completely.
Percy’s training philosophies were unusual to say the least – in the middle of winter, the trainees ran naked along the back beach, jumping into the ocean (Bass Strait). Percy made his boys run at the water’s edge, up to their ankles in the sea or in the dunes, often struggling through deep sand.
As well as intense athletics training, Doug learned a great deal from Percy, who shared his philosophy of life with his young trainees, encouraging them to study widely, to read poetry and live healthily. This opened Doug’s eyes to a different world entirely.
In 1960, Doug decided to go to the Rome Olympics, along with Percy Cerutty and Herb Elliott, who was competing (and who bettered his own 1500 metre record).
According to Doug, it is thanks to Percy that he settled in Blairgowrie on the Mornington Peninsula.
I am honoured to have Doug as one of the nine men in my exhibition.