"In 2000 we had to apply and state what we'd done in the community and why we'd like to do the run," Dave, 84 recalled on the 20-year anniversary of that run.

"I'd been fairly active in the community through cricket and baseball, and I'd done a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan too. So basically all I did was apply, and I must have put the right words in."

Unlike Melbourne 44 years earlier when Dave was a tall, strapping stringbean of an athlete, aged 20.

"For some reason or other that relay run seemed to be put together at the last by the organisers," he said.

"What they finished up doing was going to the various athletics clubs and getting them to select the relay runners from their members.

"I was living on the Central Coast back then so the Gosford Show Society held a race at the Show, after which the relay runners would be decided.

"I remember we had to run a mile, but to make it realistic we had to carry a lit torch.

"It was really tricky, because the torch was the weight of a house brick, and the flames coming off it were about a foot high, so you had to keep it away from your body and your face.

"But there was smoke coming off it too, which made breathing difficult. It was like you were running through smoke the whole time.

"We had to cover the mile distance in under six minutes to qualify, and I must have come in under the time limit. It was hard to get any rhythm because this thing was so heavy and awkward carry ... so different to Maitland."

Not that Maitland didn't have its surprises, mind you.

While Dave knew he was running, he had no idea where exactly he would fit in along the relay route.

"They put about a dozen of us in a mini bus and drove out along Cessnock Road, dropping people off at their various starting points," he said.

"None of us knew where our leg would be. But with each person they'd drop off we'd be that bit closer to the finishing point at Maitland Park. I couldn't believe it ... in the end I was the last one standing. I was as surprised as anyone. We all had a young escort runner who would run with us: mine was a student from Maitland High School, Clinton Modinger was his name, a nice young bloke."

For Dave, who had always been fairly active - "I'd run a few half marathons, that sort of thing" - the distance of "about 500 metres" was a walk in the park, even at 64.

The fact that the modern torch weighed significantly less than a house brick was no bad thing either.

"It's funny but I couldn't see much because of the crowd," he said. "I just ran through the avenue of people, you couldn't go too fast.

"I went around Robins Oval and to where the marquee was set up, which was basically where the hockey fields are now."

The crowd Dave refers to was estimated at the time to be 25,000.

To mark the occasion of the Olympic torch coming to town, four white doves were released, and there was a flyover of two Tigers Moths.

Indigenous singer Christine Anu, who went on to sing at the Sydney Olympics - the Games themselves started 19 days after the torch came through Maitland - was the big name musical performer on the day.

These days Dave has his torch mounted on a wall at his home, also he also has the uniform he ran in.

"We could purchase the torches - I can't remember the cost, a couple of hundred dollars I think - but on the condition that we aren't to sell them. Not that I would anyway. I look back on it as a wonderful experience. The experience of a lifetime really."

And is Dave still running?

"No, I walk the dog these days. But I still feel good. I've had a good life, I've been blessed."

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