He did things very differently. While others trained in running shoes, Emil Zatopek trained in army boots to make his feet lighter on race days.
His training sessions were equally unorthodox, the Czech would often run 15 miles a day, constantly experimenting and pushing himself with a punishing schedule.
“There is a great advantage in training under unfavourable conditions,” he once said. “It’s better to train under bad conditions, for the difference is then a tremendous relief in a race.”
He made history by becoming the first and only athlete to make a clean sweep of the 5,000m, 10,000m and the marathon golds, all within the space of eight days. And he was running his first-ever marathon!
There was a bit of drama too during the long run. Being a novice, Zatopek introduced himself to the world record holder, Britain’s Jim Peters, on the start line.
He followed Peters for 10 miles before asking, “Jim, the pace — is it too fast?” Peters jokingly replied, “Emil, the pace — it is too slow.”
Zatopek then replied in the best possible way by racing past the world record holder to win the event. It was also his third Olympic record in Helsinki.
“I was unable to walk for a whole week after that, so much did the race take out of me. But, it was the most pleasant exhaustion I have ever known,” said the 30-year-old.
His running style, with his head and eyes rolling, tongue hanging out and appearing to be in severe pain, was not exactly a joy to behold.
“Emil the Terrible,” they called him. “It is not gymnastics or ice skating, you know,” Zatopek said in defence years later.
His competitors could only watch in awe at his feats. Apart from his four Olympic golds (the 10,000m in 1948 being the other), Zatopek won 38 consecutive 10,000m races during a six-year period and broke 18 world records in all.
No wonder, they called him the ‘Human Locomotive’...
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