The Glow of Gold

Athletic champions are usually modest and unassuming. A further safeguard to that modesty is the isolation and remoteness in which New Zealand athletes work themselves up to Olympic standards.

– Narrator Peter Gwynne

Still it’s good for the arm muscles [making concrete blocks] ... and strength in the arms is a prime requisite for Warren Cole, bow in the New Zealand four to compete at Mexico.

– Narrator Peter Gwynne on Warren Cole, who has left his Whakatane sales agent job to join the rowing squad in Christchurch

Peter Snell first and John Davies third. The triumphs of New Zealand’s athletes mirror in their magnificence that pursuit of excellence through which the ancient Greeks believed man can become free and discover, as his spirit soars, the nature of humanity.

– The closing narration muses on New Zealand's 1,500m success at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics