Earlier today I was a tweet on Twitter about Emil Zátopek, that he was born born 97 years ago today. I didn't know him but I knew if he was mentioned, that means he must have been someone well known. So I decided to check him out.
Emil Zátopek was born on 19 September 1922 and he was a Czechoslovak long-distance runner. He's remembered in the athletics world for winning three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
In 1954, Zátopek was the first runner to break the 29-minute barrier in the 10,000 metres. Three years earlier in 1951, he had broken the hour for running 20 km. He was considered one of the greatest runners of the 20th century and was also known for his brutally tough training methods. He was the originator of interval training and hypoventilation training. source
I'm always wondering how running must have been back in those days. The answer is most likely is "very different' and I don't think I'm mistaken. I believe those days athletics was indeed about the sport and less about other things. Doping must have been minimal or undetectable. I've had an article about this not long ago and there were less scandal and those appeared much later.
Sorry for the image quality, I don't usually publish images that have text on them but this is different as there's not many. So here you can see Emil Zátopek in his tracking shoes. Look at his shoes and his running equipment and try to compare them with what athletes are using today.
In February 2013, the editors at Runner's World Magazine selected him as the Greatest Runner of All Time.[4] He is the only person to win the 5,000 metres (24 July, 1952), 10,000 metres (20 July, 1952) and Marathon (27 July, 1952), in the same Olympic Games. source
As you can see, he wasn't an ordinary person, he was a star who had achieved quite a lot, made history and even so he had a very difficult life full of obstacles.
Being born in Czechoslovakia, a communist country, where freedom was limited and rules very different from other countries, a wrong move or a wrong word was enough to be punished for life.
He was the seventh child of the family, which meant wealth was not part of their life. At the age of 16 he had to work in a shoes factory. This looks tough at first glance but maybe it was his luck as one day the factory sports coach ordered him and three other boys to run in a competition. He didn't want to, he said he's too weak for that but after a checkup he was found suitable for the race and had no choice. He started to run and felt he wanted to win. This is how it started. He finished second but that didn't matter as he found out what he wanted to do.
Four years later in 1944 he broke the Czechoslovak records for 2,000, 3,000 and 5,000 metres. At the end of the war he joined the army where he continued his trainings. He married Dana Zátopková who was born the same day and year as him. At the 1952 Olympics his wife Dana Zátopková won a gold medal in the javelin throw. This happened only a few moments after Emil's victory in the 5 km run. Dana came second.
A hero in his native country, Zátopek was an influential figure in the Communist Party. However, he supported the party's democratic wing, and after the 1968 Prague Spring, he was stripped of his rank and expelled from the army and the party, removed from all important positions and forced to work a string of menial manual labour positions. source
His life took a turn and he was no longer wanted. This was a very often used punishing method in communist countries. In 1990 he was finally rehabilitated by president Václav Havel.
