Trevor Billingham BEM (22 December 1935 – 28 January 2005) was an Australian athletics administrator and he also founded the sports active organization

Little Athletics Little Athletics is an Australian activity program that involves modified athletics events for children aged 3 to 16 in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory); 3 ...

. Billingham also carried the

olympic flame The Olympic flame is a symbol used in the Olympic movement. It is also a symbol of continuity between ancient and modern games. Several months before the Olympic Games, the Olympic flame is lit at Olympia, Greece. This ceremony starts the Olympic ...

in the 1956 Olympics and in the

2000 Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

Honours

Billingham was awarded the

British Empire Medal The British Empire Medal (BEM; formerly British Empire Medal for Meritorious Service) is a British and Commonwealth award for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Crown. The current honour was created in 1922 to ...

in 1972 for services to sport.

Career

Billingham was the founding secretary of the Geelong Regional Centre of the Victorian Amateur Athletic Association (VAAA) from December 1962 until 1968. He then served a term as Centre President in 1968-69, before moving his administrative talents to the Corio Venue, where he served as president until he retired in 1974 to take on the position of VAAA secretary. Billingham returned to the administration of senior athletics in Geelong after failing to be re-elected as VAAA secretary in 1975. He then served again on the Geelong Centre as a vice president and at the Corio Athletic Club as president until 1981. Following his retirement from the sport of athletics, Billingham, through his work as a school teacher at Geelong's Corio Technical School, devoted his time and skills to the annual schools event, the

Rock Eisteddfod The Rock Eisteddfod Challenge, also known as the Australian Rock Eisteddfod Challenge, was an Australian dance and drama challenge for government-funded high schools that was active between 1980 and 2012. Initiated by the Rock Eisteddfod Cha ...

. Following this period, he retired to his farm at Beremboke with his wife Christine (''née'' Orr). Billingham died on Friday 28 January 2005, which coincided with the first day of competition of the Victorian Country Athletics Championships being held at

Landy Field John Landy Athletics Field is situated at the corner of Swanston Street and Barwon Terrace, South Geelong, and was formerly known as Riverside Reserve. It sits adjacent to the Barwon River to the south and the Godfrey Hirst Pty Ltd carpet fa ...

in Geelong, an event with which Billingham had close links during the 1960s and 1970s. Billingham's funeral was held at Landy Field and was attended by former Olympians, including

Ron Clarke Ronald William Clarke, AO, MBE (21 February 1937 – 17 June 2015) was an Australian athlete, writer, and the Mayor of the Gold Coast from 2004 to 2012. He was one of the best-known middle- and long-distance runners in the 1960s, notable fo ...

. In 2007 Billingham was one of a number of Geelong sporting personalities to be unveiled in the federally funded Geelong City Council, Geelong Legends Plaza, built at the western entrance to the

Geelong Football Club The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 ...

Kardinia Park Kardinia Park is a major public park located in South Geelong, Victoria. A number of public and sporting facilities are located in the park: a major AFL stadium, a secondary football oval, a cricket field, an open air swimming pool, a number of ...

.Trevor Billingham & Geelong Little Athletics
/ref> The plaza included another athletic icon in

John Landy John Michael Landy OLY (12 April 1930 – 24 February 2022) was an Australian middle-distance runner and state governor. He was the second man to break the four-minute mile barrier in the mile run and held the world records for the 1500-metre ...

References

1935 births 2005 deaths {{Australia-athletics-bio-stub