Winning one gold medal at the Commonwealth Games is a heroic effort; winning two in consecutive editions is truly special; winning three in a row is simply out of the world. But winning four gold medals in four consecutive editions? That’s just ridiculous.
And yet, Precious Mckenzie, the man who achieved that tremendous feat in weightlifting, almost didn’t have the chance to win a single medal. He was born in South Africa in 1936, which meant he found himself in the apartheid era during his peak. Mckenzie was barred from competing in international sporting competitions because he was not white, which left him little option but to leave the country and try his luck elsewhere.
It was England he turned to, a country that welcomed him with open arms and for which he won three consecutive Commonwealth gold medals in 1966, 1970 and 1974. He then went on to attain citizenship of New Zealand, and he won a gold medal for the Kiwis too – in the 1978 Commonwealth Games.
Mckenzie’s is truly an incredible story; watch the great man himself talk about his journey in the video below:
