John and Reg's Javelin Throw Box

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"I didn't want it to look like a coffin. The biggest box you could put on a jet aircraft was five feet by three feet by two and a half feet," he says. "It wouldn't be the most comfortable journey, but you could do it." He adds: 'You can put up with a lot when you're that age'

In 1964, one of the best javelin throwers in Australia traveled to England to see if he could qualify for the Olympics. But, because of an injury, he didn’t make the team - and he couldn’t afford a plane ticket home. So he came up with an idea while working a cargo job at Heathrow Airport: “I saw them shipping animals. And I thought, well, if the dogs can survive it, I could.”

Marcus and Julie McSorley’s book about Reg Spiers is Out of the Box: The Highs and Lows of a Champion Smuggler.

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