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by Ron Fimrite
Emil Zátopek ran as if enduring the torture of the damned, his arms swinging wildly across his twisted torso as if warding off blows, his jagged features contorted in agony, his eyes searching the heavens as if for merciful intervention. "He ran," wrote sports columnist Red Smith, "like a man with a noose around his neck." But for all his apparent suffering, Zátopek kept pumping his sturdy legs, and at the Helsinki Games, the Czech army captain achieved the most amazing triple in track and field history. In succession he won the 10,000 meters, the 5,000 meters and the marathon—all in Olympic-record times.
After winning the 10,000 and 5,000 (above), Zátopek buried the field in the marathon.
photograph by
Zátopek was no stranger to the Games, having won the 10,000 in London four years earlier and missed winning the 5,000 by about a meter. By 1952 he was considered the world's premier distance runner, a possible successor to the Flying Finn himself, Paavo Nurmi, who won three gold medals in distance events in three Olympics in the 1920s. But no one could have anticipated such a performance, and on Nurmi's home turf at that.
In the 10,000, Zátopek shattered his own Olympic record with a time of 29:17.0, finishing a full 15.8 seconds ahead of silver medalist Alain Mimoun of France. In the 5,000, four days later, Zátopek was in a five-way race for the lead some 300 meters from the tape when he launched a finishing kick that left the others gasping in his wake. His 14:06.6 was another Olympic record. Later that same afternoon Zátopek's wife, Dana, who was born on the same day he was (Sept. 19, 1922), won the women's javelin with a throw of 165'7", also an Olympic record. The odds of a husband and wife being born on the same day and winning Olympic gold medals on the same day would seem incalculable.
Yet there would be more glory for the Zátopeks. Emil had decided to run his first marathon in these Games. A gregarious man, he sought out the race favorite, Jim Peters of Great Britain, who six weeks earlier had run the fastest marathon to date, in 2:20:42. Zátopek explained to Peters at the starting line that because he knew nothing of marathon pacing, he would probably follow Peters for a while to get the hang of it. Peters responded by establishing a brutally fast pace in hopes of exhausting Zátopek, who looked near death's door a quarter of the way into the race. But he stayed at Peters's shoulder.
Finally, after 10 miles, Zátopek, who spoke six languages, inquired of the leader, "Jim, is the pace good enough?"
"Too slow," mumbled Peters, hoping once more to discourage his shadow. Instead, with a cheerful wave, Zátopek sped by the Englishman. Peters dropped out of the race after 20 miles with a leg cramp. Zátopek galloped alone into the track stadium for the finish, looking tortured as always but running swiftly as the crowd chanted, "Zá-to-pek! Zá-to-pek!" He had been hoisted to the shoulders of the Jamaican 4x100-meter relay team and was signing autographs by the time silver medalist Reinaldo Gorno of Argentina lurched into view. Zátopek had run the race in an Olympic-record 2:23:03.2. (The men's marathon will be run in Atlanta this morning.)
At 34 he tried to run the marathon at the 1956 Melbourne Games, but this time, still recovering from a hernia operation, he actually did run in pain and finished sixth. He retired from competition after that, but his wife competed once more, winning a silver in the javelin at the 1960 Rome Games. It was the seventh Olympic medal for the Zátopeks (five golds and two silvers).
There were difficult times ahead, though. After the Soviet suppression of a Czech bid for independence in 1968, Zátopek, an ardent supporter of the insurrection, was deprived of his army commission and expelled from the Communist party. He was forced to work for a time as a manual laborer and then as a translator of foreign sports publications for the Ministry of Sport. But when freedom was finally achieved by his countrymen in '90, his reputation was fully restored, and he remains a national hero to this day.
SI Olympic Dailies
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