Ontario Community Newspapers

John Lewis: Belleville's Olympic hero, p. 2

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Lewi! After setting Canadian records and finishing in the top-10 at Tokyo, Lewis was welcomed back to Belleville by more than 1,000 cheering citizens as he disem- barked from the train at the old CN building on Station Street. The late George Carver, former sports editor of The Intelligencer, described Lewis's homecoming with these words: "The CN station was packed with citizenry as the big diesel locomotive eased to a halt at 6:30. Applause rang out as Lewis, wear- ing a 10-gallon cowboy Stetson hat, swung from the engineer's cab to be met by Mayor Jack Ellis and other dignitaries. 'Welcome home, John,' the mayor said, 'The city i$ proud of you -- and so are we.' A minute later, with tears glinting his eyes, John met his wife Sylvia who had presented him with a bouncing seven-pounds plus baby boy during his absence. With her were John's parents, smiling proudly though damp eyes." Carr-Braint, smiling broadly, told Carver: "This is amazing. I am both proud and surprised." Today, Lewis leaves no doubt Carr-Braint was a central figure in his success on the lifting dais. "He was the mainstay, he was like a father figure. I really looked up to Ken," says Lewis. Despite his incredible accom- plishments, Lewis took a realistic view of his chosen sport. "The only thing it didn't do was put bread and butter on the table," he says. "That's why I ended up moving here (Webster)." With yet another award in his back pocket -- the Tom Longboat Award as Outstanding Native Canadian Athlete for 1964 -- Lewis visited his brothers, Joe and Gary, who were already living in upstate New York. On a whim, he dropped off a job application at Eastman Kodak. "They asked me if I could start in two weeks," he says. "I said I could start in one." Lewis last competed at the Toronto Open in 1966, then official- ly retired from the sport to concen- trate on his job and raising his three children -- John, Wayne and Melinda -- with his wife, Sylvia. As for any youngsters out there leafing through the pages of Super- man, Batman or Tarzan comic books and dreaming of creating their own powerful physiques, Lewis offers some sage advice. "You've got to be a non-smoker," he says. "You need lots of oxygen. I'd like to say eat all the right foods, but I just ate everything. "I wasn't into all that other stuff (supplements, drugs). Whatever I did was all natural." Lewis becomes the fifth member of the Apollo BarbeU Club to be inducted into the Belleville Sports Hall of Fame. Preceding Lewis are Carr-Braint, the Walt brothers -- Art and Gary -- along with Price Morris. The Sunday induction cere- monies begin at 1 p.m. on the Mar- ket Square. Lewis will be inducted along with track and field builder Bruce Faulds and a third individ- ual who will be officially announced tomorrow.

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