Rick Mitchell

This was the first time in athletics history that four teams had broken the 3 minute barrier in the same race and Australia placed 4th in a new national record of 2:59.70, which still stands in 2018. It is one second faster than the Australian that finished second in the 4×400m relay final at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

In 2012, Rick Mitchell was inducted into the Australian Athletics Hall of Fame.

By this time Australia had developed great depth in the 400m, and a solo (but officially timed) 4 x 400m run on a Sunday morning by Peter Van Miltenberg, Bruce Frayne, Gary Minihan and Mitchell resulted in a new Australian record of 3:02.10. This time ensured that an Australian 4x400m team would be going to the LA Games of 1984, where Mitchell was again named as Australian team captain.

The following year, Mitchell accepted a position in England as the Area Manager - UK & Scandinavia for the Ansell Glove Company and athletics took a back seat. While in England, he competed for Haringey, and in 1982, moved to Lausanne, running for Stade Lausanne as part of late decision to defend his Commonwealth title at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games scheduled for October that year. During that time, he won the Lausanne Grand Prix meeting from old rival Harald Schmid and later ran a Suisse record (for Swiss registered athletes) of 45.49.

Prior to leaving for the Games, Mitchell's achilles injury had mended and his time trials were faster than those produced before the 1980 Olympics where he won the silver medal. However, his achilles problem re-emerged shortly after the team arrived in the US and his training was again disrupted.

In 1979, Mitchell elected not to contest the World Cup, preferring to remain in Australia to build up for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow in similar fashion to the preparation he followed in 1975. He again dominated the domestic season, lowering the national 400 metre record on four occasions as well as winning the Victorian 200 / 400 metre sprint double and again claiming the national title. In that race Mitchell lowered the national record to 45.35s in demolishing a field where the runner up ran 46.80.

Named as Australian team captain, Mitchell enjoyed good lead up form, winning at his first run after the national titles in Pisa, before defeating a strong, largely American field in Stuttgart and 1979 world 400 leader Harald Schmid of West Germany, in an Australian record time of 45.26. It was Mitchell's last competition prior to contesting the Olympics. In Moscow, he easily reached his second Olympic final.

Mitchell's silver medal from Moscow remains the last individual men's running medal won at the Olympic Games by an Australian and the only track and field medal won by an Australian in an eastern bloc country. He then continued to race in Europe, where he frequently met American athletes who had not contested the Olympic Games following America's boycott of the meeting over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Two years later Mitchell competed in his first 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada where, in extremely windy conditions, and having to run four rounds of 400 metre races in 30 hours he proved too strong for his opponents, taking the individual 400 metre gold medal and anchoring the 4x400 metre relay team to third place.

Mitchell was chosen in the Australian team for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and in a competition notable for disappointing Australian performances, he reached the Olympic Final on his international debut, finishing 6th in an Australian record.

The following offseason in 1975 saw Mitchell complete his first dedicated build-up and he quickly emerged as the dominant Australian 400 metre runner during the following summer, defeating Gee for the first time in December 1975, before equalling the Australian record of 45.7s and claiming both the Victorian and Australian titles easily.

At age nineteen Mitchell placed second in the Australian 400 metre title in 1974 when five days too old to contest the junior title in a time of 47.7s and things looked promising. However, he was to miss the next full offseason build-up following a bout of glandular fever and despite lowering his personal best to 46.8s at the end of the 1974–75 season, Mitchell placed second again to Steven Gee from New South Wales.

Commencing in athletics at the relatively late age of seventeen, he joined the Waverley Athletics Club in Melbourne in 1972 with the aim of improving his fitness before the following rugby union season. After two seasons with Waverley, Mitchell met coach Norm Osborne, who coached at St Stephens Harriers. He transferred to St Stephens and they would work as coach and athlete for the remainder of Mitchell's career.

The race itself was won by Russian Viktor Markin in a European record of 44.60s (the fastest time in the world for three seasons), while Mitchell finished strongly to take the silver medal in 44.84s. This time was the 12th fastest in history (full electronic timing) and was a Commonwealth record. Third placegetter, Frank Schaffer of East Germany, produced the fastest time ever for third outside of the altitude influenced Olympics conducted in Mexico City in 1968.

Richard "Rick" Charles Mitchell (born 24 March 1955, in Sydney) is an Australian triple Olympian who competed in the 400 metres and 4 × 400 metres relay. Mitchell won a silver medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics, and also won one gold, two silver, and one bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games in 1978 and 1982.