The men’s 10,000-meter race last Saturday was an historic race, with Mo Farah winning Britain’s first Olympic gold at that distance and Galen Rupp becoming the first American in 48 years to medal in the event.
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No. 10: Gebrselassie outduels Tergat in the 10,000-meter final in 2000 in Sydney
It was misfortune that led to the greatest 10,000-meter duel of all. In Sydney, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, the defending champion and world record holder (26:22.75), was hurt. His Achilles tendon throbbed and his speed was compromised. This opened the door--just a crack--for his primary foe, Paul Tergat of Kenya.
Four years earlier, at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Gebrselassie had defeated Tergat in the 10,000 with a sizzling 28-second last 200. Tergat, the former 10,000-meter world-record holder and five-time World Cross-Country Champion, had never beaten Gebrselassie in a major track event. But as the Sydney 10,000 unfolded, Tergat could sense that Gebrselassie was vulnerable.
The two were in a lead pack of nine men, passing the 5000 mark in a relatively tepid 13:45. Twice, at 6000 and 9000 meters, Gebrselassie moved to the front, but each time he slowed, relinquishing the lead. Six men, all Africans, were still together when the bell sounded for the final lap.
The crowd of 112,524 all stood, anticipating Gebrselassie's explosive kick; it had never failed him. But it was Tergat who bolted with 250 meters to go. Getting the jump on Gebrselassie, Tergat went wide around the pack, then to the inside, blazing full-throttle around the final turn and into the home straightaway. Gebrselassie charged after him, but looked ragged. His torso listed, his stride was uneven.
But if Gebrselassie lacked smoothness, he did not lack will. He drew closer . . . closer . . . and reached Tergat's right shoulder with 50 meters left. Who would take it? Tergat, tall and elegant, pumping furiously with teeth and hands clenched. Gebrselassie, compact, driving with desperation, his grimace testimony to his bum leg. At the line, it was Gebrselassie.
He had won the closest Olympic 10,000 ever. His winning time was 27:18.20, with Tergat nine-hundredths of a second behind. When Gebrselassie hobbled off the track, he revealed the extent of his Achilles tendon injury. It seemed a seductive gift to Tergat, who, for all his greatness, probably never had a chance.
No. 9: Peter Snell's "double" in the 800 and 1500 meters at Tokyo in 1964
Going into the 800 at the 1960 Rome Olympics, New Zealand's Peter Snell ranked 25th in the world. Yet the powerfully built 21-year-old Kiwi ran a 1:46.3, an Olympic record, and defeated world record-holder Roger Moens of Belgium in the process. At Tokyo four years later, Snell had another surprise in store: He would try to win the Olympic 800 and 1500 double, which no one had accomplished in more than 40 years. As in '60, Snell's lead-up 800s in the months beforehand were unimpressive, yet he beat all the favorites in Tokyo in an Olympic record 1:45.1.
This set the stage for the Tokyo 1500 final five days later in front of 75,000 buzzing fans at National Stadium. As expected, Michel Bernard of France took the early lead in the race, and passed the 400 in 58 seconds flat. The American Dyrol Burleson, the world's top-ranked miler three years before, ran in second. Most believed these were the two men who would give Snell a fight.
Snell positioned himself in the midpack of the nine-man final. His stride, though muscular, had its usual awkwardness. His coach, the legendary Arthur Lydiard, had ordered Snell to stay back. Lydiard's plan was to have Snell's New Zealand teammate John Davies take the pack through the 800 in a modest 2:00. Mission accomplished: 2:00.5. Snell hung in fourth, feeling strong, itching to move. The pace quickened a touch as Davies led for another circuit, reaching 1200 in 2:59.3, with three-quarters of a lap left.
Still Snell waited. Waited. He knew no one could match his fitness, so he waited some more. Almost imperceptibly, he moved from fourth to third around Burleson, who was wedged in on the inside. Snell had defeated Burleson twice the previous summer, and had his number. Then, on the backstretch nearing the final turn, Snell hit the gas-and there was nothing anyone in the race could do about it. His powerful legs had fed on a thousand miles of training in the 10 weeks leading up to the Games. He was ox-strong.
In the final straight he ran alone, covering the last lap in 52.6 to win by 11 meters in 3:38.1. Snell wore an expression of bliss as he crossed the finish line, with Josef Odlozil of Czechoslovakia second, and his countryman, Davies, third. No one has accomplished the Olympic 800/1500 double since.
No. 8: Paavo Nurmi's 10,000-meter victory in Amsterdam in 1928, his ninth gold
In the 1920s, when sporting figures were the heroes of a Golden Age, Paavo Nurmi was as much the celebrity as Babe Ruth or Charlie Chaplin. During one winter tour of the United States, Nurmi won 53 of 55 races and was invited to meet President Calvin Coolidge. He was so overpowering that he could win multiple events within days of each other-even hours.
Case in point: At the 1924 Paris Olympics, Nurmi won the 10,000-meter cross-country race in suffocating 100-degree heat that forced 24 of the 39 starters to collapse after (and in some cases during) the event. The next day, while many of those contestants remained hospitalized, Nurmi won the 3000-meter cross-country race. Wait, it gets better. At that same Olympics, Nurmi won the 1500 meters, and exactly one hour later won the 5000 as well. All told, he won five golds at the '24 Games.
Nurmi went into the 1928 Games in Amsterdam having already won eight Olympic gold medals. His first of three planned events would be the 10,000. He'd been held out of the Paris 10,000 four years before by Finnish officials so that another Finn, Ville Ritola, could win. Which he did, setting a world record of 30:23.2. Angered, Nurmi shattered that mark soon after the '24 Games in 30:06.2. (He was said to have run sub-30 in training.)
On the opening day of the 1928 Olympics, with 30,000 spectators filling the stadium, Nurmi lined up against Ritola in the 10,000. There were more than 20 men in the field, many from Scandinavia, as distance-dominant then as Kenya and Ethiopia are today. At Paris, four years before, a Finn had won every single distance event-from the 1500 to the marathon. No one doubted that a Finn would triumph again. The only question was . . . which one?
As the race got under way, Joie Ray, the American hopeful, was among the early leaders. But he was no match for the famous Flying Finns. After four laps, Nurmi and Ritola went to the front with Edvin Wide of Sweden, the '24 silver medalist. Ray, who would place fifth in the marathon a week later, fell back, and shortly before midway, the Nurmi-Ritola-Wide trio took charge. On the 18th lap, the two Finns dropped Wide, and powered on in tandem from there. As a New York Times dispatch described it, ". . . the pair doing such a perfect brother act that one could imagine them both part of the same smooth-running machine . . ."
Nurmi and Ritola ran together until the bell lap (lap 24), when Nurmi bolted ahead for a narrow victory in 30:18.8, an Olympic record. Ritola's time: 30:19.4, with Wide taking the bronze in 31:00.8. "It was worth crossing the ocean just to see this," said Major General MacArthur (yes, that MacArthur), President of the American Olympic Committee, as quoted in the Times.
Apparently still fuming from the 10,000 slight in Paris, Nurmi refused to shake Ritola's hand on the victory podium, and walked off the track, ninth gold medal in hand, unsmiling and shunning photographers. Nurmi, who would set 25 world records in all, finally seemed at peace many years later when he was chosen to carry the torch to open the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki.
No. 7: Joan Benoit Samuelson's victory in the 1984 Olympic Marathon in Los Angeles
When Joan Samuelson took the line in 1984 in Los Angeles for the first Olympic Marathon for women, she was not the favorite. She'd undergone knee surgery just months earlier, in April, and ran an exhaustive U.S. Marathon Trials race 17 days later in May. Samuelson, 27, had little going for her-except good old-fashioned American guts.
Grete Waitz of Norway, on the other hand, had already won five of her nine New York City Marathons and the previous year's inaugural World Championships Marathon in Helsinki, which Samuelson had passed up. Sure, Samuelson had set a 2:22:43 world record at Boston in 1983, but that was a mixed race--not the kind of head-to-head confrontation she'd find at the Olympics against Waitz and company. And there was lots of stellar company.
So what was Samuelson doing with an in-your-face surge 14 minutes into the race that showed her cards to all the world? The field of just 50 women from 28 nations was loaded, and included Waitz, her outstanding Norwegian teammate Ingrid Kristiansen, Rosa Mota of Portugal, Lorraine Moller of New Zealand, and Julie Brown of the United States. Champions all, they settled into a pack behind Samuelson, surely wondering what she could possibly be thinking on this hot, humid L.A. morning.
It was an amazing moment: A decade-long fight for equality in distance running had led to this 26.2-mile testament to women's endurance. And here was Samuelson, defying convention, forging ahead, leading the charge.
At the 10-K mark, Samuelson's time was 35:24, and she had an 11-second lead. At 15 kilometers, her time was 51:46, and she had a 51-second lead. Where was Waitz? And Kristiansen, who'd set a world 5,000-meter record two months earlier? These two women had prepared with excruciating care. They'd trained in double warmup suits for the heat. They'd taken antismog inhalants. They'd listened to recordings of their own voices telling them they would succeed no matter what. "Everything is perfect," said the Norwegian coach, Johan Kaggestad, beforehand.
Things were perfect–-for Samuelson.
Minute by minute, mile by mile, she forged onward past the barren landscape along the Marina Freeway, increasing her lead to almost two minutes at 15 miles. What fortitude enables a lone runner to hold form for more than 20 miles when she knows that behind her lay the greats, en masse, conserving energy, poised like a cycling peloton to overtake her?
The answer came from Samuelson herself after the race, when she recounted her mindset. "I said to myself, 'Are you prepared to deal with victory?' I decided I was." She raced home a winner in 2:24:52, a minute and 26 seconds ahead of Waitz, and two minutes and five seconds up on Portugal's Mota. Kristiansen came in fourth.
Suddenly, in the aftermath, everyone was saying yeah, sure, we knew it all along. We knew Joanie would take it. Take it she did, and no runner deserved a title more. Perhaps no runner, in the Olympic Marathon at least, had ever taken such a tactical risk to win gold.
No. 6: Lasse Viren falls, then goes on to win the 1972 10,000 meters in Munich
When 23-year-old Lasse Viren arrived in Munich for his first Olympics, he carried the honor of Finland on his shoulders. The Flying Finns, once led by Paavo Nurmi, had dominated distance running decades before. But since the 1936 Games, Finland had not won a single gold medal. Could Viren win back Finnish glory? As the 10,000 final got under way, the impulsive Briton Dave Bedford took the field through the first lap in a swift 59.9. Fast times were expected, especially after 18 runners had bettered Billy Mills's Olympic record (28:24.4, set in 1964) in the qualifying heats. But Viren was hardly the favorite. The year before, in the European Championships in the Finnish capital of Helsinki, he had placed only 17th in the 10,000 meters and seventh in the 5000.
In Munich, Bedford kept up his breakneck speed, passing the first mile in 4:15, well ahead of world-record pace. But at this point he'd shaken off only four men in the field of 15. Among those staying close at two miles (passed in 8:44), and looking totally at ease, was Viren. The Finn, a policeman who had to beg for stipends to flee the hard Finnish winter to train in the sun, had come alive a few weeks before the Games. He'd set a world record (8:14.0) in the rarely run two-mile, and had improved his 10,000 time to 27:52.4, a Finnish national record. The man was in shape, but he lacked experience, especially compared with other 10,000 contenders, such as Miruts Yifter of Ethiopia and the American marathon hopeful Frank Shorter.
Suddenly, just before the halfway point of the race, the tightly bunched field exploded in a collision. Finding himself running up on Emiel Puttemans of Belgium, Viren put out a hand to steady himself. In slowing, Viren backed toward Shorter, who extended an arm for protection, swerving to avoid contact.
Viren tripped, and as he did, his legs tangled with those of Mohamed Gammoudi of Tunisia, who cartwheeled onto the infield. For a few long seconds-in what must have seemed like an eternity for the whole of Finland-Viren lay sprawled on the track, almost motionless. Then he rose, like a statue come to life, and gave chase. Gammoudi, 34, the 1968 Olympic 10,000 bronze medalist, looked completely dazed. But he also struggled to his feet and resumed running.
Less than a lap after the fall, Viren, the novice, was back with the lead pack. Gammoudi, the veteran, soon dropped out altogether. At 6000 meters, Viren audaciously moved to the front. Then Yifter took it, and Viren grabbed it back. By 8000 meters, Bedford's recklessness had done him in, and he fell off the pace. With five laps to go, the leaders-Viren, Puttemans, Shorter, and Mariano Haro of Spain-measured their efforts, waiting for someone to surge.
With 600 meters left, Viren dropped the hammer. As the bell sounded for the final lap, the lean 5'11" Viren led Puttemans by three meters and Yifter by 10. Shorter, who'd set an American record of 27:58.2 in the heats, was falling back and would place fifth. No one could match Viren's kick, and he roared through the last lap in 56.4 for the gold. His time, 27:38.4, broke Ron Clarke's seven-year-old world record by one second. Puttemans was second, Yifter third.
A week later, on the same day that Shorter would win the Marathon, Viren accomplished the amazing "distance double" by winning the 5000. Four years later in Montreal, Viren did this again, for an unprecedented 5 and 10 "double-double." He also dared to run the Marathon at Montreal, and placed fifth. Thanks to one man, the aura of the Flying Finns had been emphatically restored.
No. 5: Herb Elliott smashes the competition in the 1500 meters at the 1960 Rome Games
Though he'd just turned 22 before the Rome Games of 1960, Australia's Herb Elliott reigned over the 1500 and mile. In 1958, at 20 years old, Elliott had set the 1500 world record of 3:36 and racked up the four fastest 1500s ever that same year. In 1959, he took a large part of the year off from running, got married, lost motivation, even took up smoking. But he regrouped with a vengeance in 1960, and going into the Games, his 1500 mastery had returned.
What's more, two runners who might have posed the biggest problems for Elliott, New Zealand's Murray Halberg and Ireland's Ron Delany, chose other events in Rome. (Halberg would end up winning the 5000; Delany ran the 800 meters, but was eliminated in the qualifying heats.)
In the 1500 qualifying round, Elliott easily won his heat in 3:41.4, just .02 seconds off the Olympic record set by Delany at Melbourne four years earlier. Three days later, on the morning of the final, Elliott went to church, did some light jogging, then tried to nap. It was no good. He was edgy and would later say, "My nerves and muscles were screaming for action."
But as the starting gun cracked for the final, he hung back, letting others set the pace. Speaking recently about this strategy, Elliott said, "I usually settled into the field in third or fourth, getting the feel of the race. But I didn't think I had a particularly fast finish, so from the halfway point, my objective was to burn the others off."
Others, particularly those he raced against, might disagree with that assessment of his finishing kick. When setting his 3:36 world record in 1958, he'd run the last lap in 56-flat. That same summer, in running a 3:55.4 mile (the second-fastest ever to that point), he ran the final lap in a punishing 55.6. But his strength was such that he could kick at halfway-and often did. Thus was his dominance. How do you beat a guy who starts sprinting with two laps to go?
So in the 1960 Olympic final, the experienced 28-year-old Frenchman Michel Bernard tried the only logical tactic against Elliott: He went out hard to try and wear him out. Bernard led the nine-man field through a brisk 58.2 at 400 and 1:57.8 at 800. But the leaders remained bunched, with Elliott right there in fourth place at 1:58. Two Americans from Oregon, 20-year-old Dyrol Burleson and veteran Jim Grelle, were farther back.
At that moment, with 700 meters to go, Elliott literally sprinted to the lead, running the next 100 meters in 13.2 seconds (52.8 400-meter pace). The move completely strung out the field, but Elliott forged on, passing the 1200 in 2:54.0 (a 56-flat third lap). Istvan Rozsavolgyi of Hungary, ranked number-one in the 1500 in 1959, hung on desperately in second. Michel Jazy of France, a future mile world record holder, clung to third.
With 300 meters left, for all intents and purposes, Elliott had the gold medal won. But still he did not let up. His yelling, towel-waving coach, Percy Cerutty, urged him faster. Cerutty caused such a commotion by rushing from the stands to the track that Italian police had to subdue him. Elliott poured it on, and poured it on some more, winning by a full 2.8 seconds. It was the largest victory margin in Olympic 1500 history until Kip Keino's 2.9-second victory over Jim Ryun in Mexico in 1968. Elliott's time, 3:35.6, broke his own world record. Jazy came second, and Rozsavolgyi third.
After the Games, Elliott went on a European tour, running 11 races in 19 days, winning every 1500 and mile he entered. The following spring, Elliott entered a few races, but his heart wasn't in it. By then a student at Cambridge University, Elliott, still only 22, retired from racing. During his five years of senior-level competition, he never lost a 1500 or mile, amassing 44 straight victories.
No. 4: Sammy Wanjiru’s blazing Beijing marathon (2008)
Before the 2008 Olympics, there were two types of world-class men’s marathons. In big-city spring and fall events, runners chased times under often-ideal racing conditions. In championship events, runners conceded to the typical hot, humid conditions and ran slower, more tactical races. When the field of 95 took to the Beijing start line, only three men in Olympic history had broken 2:10 for the marathon, all back in 1984, even though the world record had been lowered to 2:04:26 in the interim.
Then came Sammy Wanjiru, a 21-year-old Kenyan. In two hours, six minutes, and 32 seconds, he applied time-trial tactics to the Olympic marathon, and forever changed how elites approach the distance.
Wanjiru moved to Japan as a teenager to race for a corporate team. He developed quickly, setting a world junior record of 26:41 for 10,000 meters and lowering the half-marathon world record three times once he reached the open ranks. Beijing was just his third marathon; he had debuted the previous December with a win at Fukuoka in Japan, then followed with a second-place 2:05:24 at London four months before the Olympics. He knew one way to run—hard from the gun, with an upright gait and midfoot strike that gave the impression he was sprinting the whole way.
Just minutes into the Beijing race, Wanjiru went to the front and more or less dared the rest of the world to try to keep up. Race plans immediately went out the window, as the rest of the field had to decide whether to go with Wanjiru or hold back and hope he'd blow up. All the top East Africans, plus some key Moroccans, latched on. American Trials winner Ryan Hall, pegged even by non-Americans as a serious medal threat, let the pack go on the assumption they’d wilt in the heat and he’d pick them off in the second half.
Wanjiru’s brash front running stunned competitors and commentators alike. Liveblogging the race for Runner’s World, All About 75 Hard,
“The leaders are running something like 2:06 pace now. I doubt they can hold that. I think Hall and coach Terrence Mahon calculated that this is not a 2:06 day, and Hall is running the pace he hopes to maintain to the end.”
Wanjiru proved Burfoot wrong. Instead of slowing, he picked up the pace, hitting 10K in 29:25. The crazy splits kept coming—59:10 at 20K, 1:02:34 at halfway. Hall was nearly two minutes back. By now it was clear that the medals would come from the still-large pack. Burfoot’s disbelief turned to amazed respect. “I've never seen marathon runners race this hard in these conditions. This is how they usually run in April and October with temps in the 50s,” he wrote as they neared the 25-kilometer mark.
With his pursuers dropping off one by one over the last 10 miles, Wanjiru kept pressing. Even once he was assured of winning, he kept flying, as if the point of the race were not only to win, but to show the rest of the world just how hard it’s possible to run from start to finish over 26.2 miles. He even picked up the pace during the lap inside the Bird’s Nest Stadium, waving to the crowd and looking like he could keep going for another three or five or 10 miles if necessary.
His time: 2:06:32, almost three minutes under the previous Olympic record. Behind him, men staggered in, amazed that they had run so fast in the brutal weather and yet finished so far behind. Hall, for example, ran 2:12:33. It was about the time he had figured he’d need to run to medal. Instead, it got him 10th.
The impact of Wanjiru’s run was immediate. The last vestiges of fear of the marathon distance were gone. Every major men’s marathon since has been run hard from the start in Wanjiru’s catch-me-if-you-can style. Of the 20 fastest times in history, only one predates the 2008 Olympics.
Sadly, Wanjiru’s name isn’t next to one of those 20-fastest times. Although he remained occasionally brilliant after Beijing, personal demons began to overtake his running. He won a memorable Chicago duel with Beijing bronze medalist Tsegay Kebede in October 2010, and then never raced again. That December, he was arrested for domestic abuse and weapons possession at home in Kenya. In May 2011, he fell to his death from a balcony. His legacy will be felt in London, but his absence on the start line will be palpable.
No. 3: Abebe Bikila's victories in the marathon at Rome (1960) and Tokyo (1964)
The 1960 Rome Olympic Marathon was one for the ages. The course snaked past countless historic sites, and finished in evening darkness at the Arch of Constantine, built in A.D. 315. Torchbearers lined the last few kilometers of the course so runners could see along the cobblestoned Appian Way.
The Tokyo marathon four years later lacked that spark, but it did have one big thing going for it: the return of the great Ethiopian Abebe Bikila, who'd set a world record (2:15:16) four years earlier in Rome while running barefoot. Incredibly, given the status of African runners today, it marked the first time an African had medaled in an Olympic distance event.
Bikila's unorthodox approach-training at high altitude, sometimes with shoes and sometimes without, blissfully unaware of his times-impressed the editors of Track & Field News, who wrote in 1960 that "Bikila's main attribute, outside of his natural talent, was a complete innocence as to what was too fast and what was too slow. His mind was uncluttered with statistics and imaginary barriers." Indeed, when he raced, Bikila never concerned himself with pacing. He just ran, without knowing anything about the opposition, other than his own teammates.
As the Tokyo Olympic marathon got underway, Bikila let Ron Clarke of Australia do the work at the front. Clarke, the 10,000-meter world record holder, sped out ahead and hit the first 5-K in 15:06. Clarke's frenzied effort immediately strung out the field. By halfway, the pace had relented slightly, at which point Bikila drew ahead of Clarke, who would eventually finish 9th.
For the rest of the way, Bikila was never challenged. It was a poignant image: a solitary figure running imperiously to the finish in a pair of bright white Pumas. Bikila, ever slender at 5'9" and 122 pounds, strode into Olympic Stadium before a roaring crowd of 75,000. His time: a world-record-shattering 2:12:11. He won by four minutes and seven seconds, a margin that hasn't been equaled since.
No. 2: Billy Mills' 10,000-meter miracle upset at the 1964 Tokyo Games
The story is still hard to believe, years after the fact: Native American Billy Mills grows up in a family of 15 on a reservation in South Dakota. Orphaned at 12, he shows running talent, but is verbally abused by his college coach. He joins the Marines, makes the 1964 Olympic team in the 10,000 meters, but is still considered a nobody in Tokyo. Until the last lap of the 10,000.
The favorite was Ron Clarke of Australia, the world record holder. With 75,000 spectators in Olympic Stadium, Clarke led the massive field of 38 runners through the first mile in 4:23, and second mile in 8:58. With Clarke were Mohamed Gammoudi of Tunisia, Nikolay Dutov of the Soviet Union, Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia, and Mills.
The five passed the 5000 in 14:04.6, with Mills leading. But prior to Tokyo, Mills had barely broken 14 minutes in a 5000-meter race outright! As the second half of the race unfolded, Mills, Clarke, Gammoudi, and Wolde stuck together for one kilometer after another, with each taking turns in the lead. With three laps to go, Clarke pushed the pace and Wolde fell away.
As the bell lap began, Mills moved to Clarke's shoulder and inched slightly ahead. On the turn, Clarke and Mills exchanged elbows, and Mills was shoved into the third lane. His legs buckled and his arms flailed, but he recovered his stride. Then, on the backstretch, the small, head-bobbing Gammoudi slashed between Mills and Clarke and moved into the lead.
Around the curve and into the final straight, Gammoudi sprinted for all he was worth. Clarke looked beaten in second, and Mills looked way out of it in third. The crowd was on its feet roaring. Then Clarke closed on Gammoudi, while Mills began gaining on both. Somehow, Mills found another gear, and flew past Gammoudi and Clarke to victory. Mills' time was 28:24.4, with Gammoudi second in 28:24.8, and Clarke third in 28:25.8. All three broke the Olympic record. Afterward, Mills was asked by officials, "Who are you?" The Olympic gold medalist, that's who.
No. 1: Emil Zatopek completes an amazing “triple” at Helsinki in 1952
Emil Zatopek did every runner who came after him a great service. That is, if you're a runner who doesn't mind pain. Zatopek essentially invented the interval system of training that would become the hallmark of performance breakthroughs worldwide starting in the 1950s and continuing to this day.
Zatopek's punishing workouts-sprint after sprint with little rest-made the Czechoslovakian army captain the pre-eminent runner of his era and arguably of all time. By the autumn of 1948, he'd broken every Czech distance record, and at that year's Games in London, he took gold in the 10,000 and silver in the 5000. At this point in his career, he'd already gained a Jekyll and Hyde reputation: humble, self-effacing, engaging off the track; fierce, uncompromising competitor on it.
Zatopek's slashing arm action, hunched shoulders, and tortured facial expressions, together with his experimental use of mid-race surges, gave him an almost mythical presence when he raced. He was called both "The Locomotive" and "The Engine," and legendary sports columnist Red Smith once wrote that he ran "like a man with a noose around his neck." When Zatopek was asked about this new thing called interval training, he said, "I already know how to run slow. I want to learn how to run fast." When queried on his thrashing, grimacing running style, Zatopek said, "I am not talented enough to run and smile at the same time."
By the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, he was well established as the dominant distance runner of his day. His first event: the 10,000. After employing his surging tactic several times early in the race, he threw in a final push at the 8-K mark to pull away from Alain Mimoun, the French-Algerian who would go on to win the 1956 Olympic Marathon. Zatopek's victory margin was 100 meters. His time: 29:17, an Olympic record.
While at the Helsinki Olympics, the 29-year-old Zatopek did not taper his training. Several times before the 10,000, he did workouts of 5 x 100 meters, 20 x 400, then 5 x 100-twice a day-followed by six miles of easy recovery running. Two days after the 10,000, Zatopek ran a heat of the 5000, and two days after that he raced the 5000 final against several top contenders, including Mimoun.
With 200 meters to go in that race, Zatopek sat in fourth, and looked to be in trouble. However. None of the men ahead of him had trained by running with a woman on his back, as Zatopek had with his wife, Dana. And Dana was not a petite woman, but rather a 148-pound Czech javelin-thrower who would win a gold medal that same day in Helsinki. Suddenly, Zatopek exploded into a sprint, swept into the lead around the final curve, and won the 5,000 before a wildly cheering crowd of 70,000 in 14:06.6, another Olympic record. Again, Mimoun took the silver.
Three days later, Zatopek entered the marathon, an event he'd never tried, nor had he trained for it. Well, not formally anyway. In the military, he'd done 20-milers in army boots. Zatopek's only strategy going in was to follow the favorite, Jim Peters of Great Britain, who'd set the world record of 2:20:43 six weeks before. So he introduced himself to Peters at the start.
Peters had his strategy too-to drop Zatopek early-so he led the field through a brisk 5-K in 15:43 (2:11 marathon pace). At this point, Zatopek trailed by a full 19 seconds, and was beggining to worry about his shoes. In a novice mistake, he'd decided to run in a new pair, but after finding them stiff, coated the insides with cooking grease for comfort. Peters kept his lead through 10-K, with Zatopek and Swedish marathon champion Gustaf Jansson several seconds behind. By the 20-K mark, the three men were together. Zatopek, still unsure of the pace, turned to Peters and asked, "Jim, the pace-is it too fast?" To which the proud world record holder famously replied, "Emil, the pace-it is too slow."
With that, Peters surged, but the pace soon took its toll, and he faded. Zatopek and Jansson took over. Soon after halfway, it was all Zatopek (Peters eventually dropped out with a muscle cramp). In the final miles, Zatopek chatted with bicyclists riding alongside him, and he entered the Helsinki stadium to chants of "Za-to-pek! Za-to-pek!" in sync with each step he took.
He won by two-and-a-half minutes in 2:23:04, a third Olympic record. Zatopek remains the only runner ever to achieve the Olympic distance triple-5000, 10,000, and marathon-in the same Games.
Scott is a veteran running, fitness, and health journalist who has held senior editorial positions at Runner’s World and Running Times. Much of his writing translates sport science research and elite best practices into practical guidance for everyday athletes. He is the author or coauthor of several running books, including Things were perfect-for Samuelson, Advanced Marathoning, and The Best 1 Mile Races to Add to Your Calendar. Get Your Spot for the NYRR Brooklyn Half Slate, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and other members of the sedentary media. His lifetime running odometer is past 110,000 miles, but he’s as much in love as ever.
Marc Bloom’s high school cross-country rankings have played an influential role in the sport for more than 20 years and led to the creation of many major events, including Nike Cross Nationals and the Great American Cross Country Festival. He published his cross-country journal, Harrier, for more than two decades.
