Emil Zátopek

Emil Zatopek, 1951

Emil Zatopek ( born September 19, 1922 in Kopřivnice, † November 21, 2000 in Prague) was a Czech athlete. The long-distance runner and Olympic champion was a multiple world record holder and Czechoslovakia a folk hero.

Career

The son of a carpenter and later chemistry student has been built since the 1940s in Bata Zlín Jan Haluza to a top runners. Emil Zatopeks first major successes came at the 1948 Olympic Games in London, when he became Olympic champion over 10,000 meters and behind Gaston Reiff won the silver medal in the 5,000 -meter run. After the arrest of his coach to Zatopek trained itself At the European Championships in Brussels in 1950, he won both 5000 as well as the 10,000 meters gold medal.

At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, he won three gold medals. The 10,000 meters, he won as favorite significantly and his victories over 5000 meters and the marathon are considered legendary.

In the 5000 -meter final, he led a long time, but was then temporarily dropped back to fourth place until the leading British Chris Chataway, favorites Herbert Schade and his long-time rival Alain Mimoun over spurted in the last corner. Only shortly before the deadline, he then decided to participate in the marathon, which he had never run in a race. Again he won ( 2:23:03.2 ) as well as in the other two competitions with Olympic record.

On September 29, 1951 in Stara Boleslav Zatopek had already covered the first man at an hourly run more than 20 kilometers. In 1954, he broke also the 29 -minute barrier on the 10,000 meters ( 28:54.2 on 1 June 1954 in Brussels). At the European Championships in Berne in 1954, he defended his title in the 10,000 meters and won the bronze medal over 5000 meters.

Zatopek tried in 1956 to defend his gold medal in the marathon at the Olympic Games in Melbourne. But he could by an injury is not enough to prepare and finished sixth of the run, his friend Alain Mimoun won. He joined in 1957 .. from competitive skating back

Unlike, for example, always elegant -looking predecessor Paavo Nurmi Zatopek raised mostly the impression to be at the end of his strength - he still won. Due to its optical binding, he received the nickname " Czech Locomotive".

The popular runners served after the end of his sporting career as an officer ( last Colonel ) in the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense, and took an influential position in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. However, he supported the democratic wing, actively participated in the Prague Spring and signed the manifesto of 2000 words. After the invasion of the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries in August 1968, he climbed in his army uniform on Soviet tanks and appealed to the soldiers to go back home. He lost all the offices and had to work temporarily as a punishment in the uranium mine and as a garbage man. 1974 Zatopek was rehabiliert. He got a job in the sports Documentation Centre in Prague and was allowed to visit friends abroad again. In 1975 he was in Paris the "Fair Play Award " by the UNESCO in 1977, the " diploma first class " by the President of the National Association for Physical Education.

In 1997 he was elected to the Czech Republic for " Athlete of the Century". He lived until his death with his wife in a separate house in the Prague district of Troy. On 21 November 2000, he died at the Military Hospital in Prague at the of a stroke. Two years after his death a monument to him was opened in Prague. In December 2006, the Czech State Railways named an express train after him.

He was married to Dana Zátopková, 1952 a few minutes after the victory of her husband in the 5000m also won a gold medal in Helsinki, in the javelin.

On December 6, 2000, he the Pierre de Coubertin medal was awarded posthumously for outstanding sportsmanship.

2008, the French writer Jean Echenoz told in his novel " Courir " (engl.: "Running ", 2009) the life of Emil Zatopek. The novel was published in 2009 in German translation under the title "Running ".

2012 Zatopek was included as one of only twelve athletes in the initial selection of the newly created IAAF Hall of Fame. In February 2013, the journalists of Runner's World Magazine elected him as the greatest runner of all time (Greatest Runner of All Time).

Quotes

" Bird flies, fish swim, man running. "

" If you want to run, then run a mile away. But Want a new life, then run the marathon. "

" Mach's hard for you in training, then it will be easier in the competition. "