Sports legends: Emil Zatopek, the Czech locomotive.

We continue with our particular tributes to sports legends, this time we talk about Emil Zatopek, the Czech locomotive.

Emil Zatopek: (Koprivnice, 1922 – Prague, 2000) Czech athlete. Four-time Olympic champion, he has the honor of having won three gold medals (5.000 and 10.000 meters and marathon) in the same Olympic Games (Helsinki 1952), a feat that was not surpassed until the Atlanta 96 Olympics. Considered one of the great athletics figures of the XNUMXth century, his merits on the tracks earned him the nickname "The Human Locomotive."

Zatopek's impressive career began in a purely anecdotal way, when he worked in the Bata shoe factories, a company that sponsored a race every year in which the people were almost forced to compete. Dragged to the starting line, he had no choice but to run and, to his surprise, he came second, which prompted him to participate in other races. He himself created his own training system, which consisted of doing short distances, which allowed him to gradually increase his speed.

At the end of World War II, Zatopek joined the army to pursue a military career, reaching the rank of colonel. He became known in international athletics during the 1946 European Championships, held in Oslo, where he was fifth in the 5.000 meters. Two years later came the London Olympics, in which he won the gold medal in 10.000 meters with a new Olympic record (29 minutes, 59 seconds and 6 hundredths) that stunned the stadium audience, and took silver in the 5.000 meters. In the four years prior to the 52 Helsinki Games, he broke the world record for the 10.000 meters five times, once for the ten miles, twice for the twenty kilometers, twice for the hour and once for the thirty kilometres.

In this second Olympic event, the Czech official once again became the only winner of the 10.000 and 5.000 meter events with two world records (29 min, 17 sec, 0 cent and 14 min, 06 sec and 6 cent), which that equaled the feat of the Finn Hannes Kolehmainen; He also won the marathon, a test that he ran for the first time, with a new Olympic record (2 hours, 23 min and 03 sec). To top off the glory of these Olympics, his wife, javelin thrower Dana Zatopkova, added a fourth gold medal to their marriage collection.

He returned to the tracks in Melbourne in 1956, but age and injuries sustained from so many years of hard work held him back against Algerian Alain Mimoun, who won the event with a formidable career that earned him the respect of the public and of the former champion who took off his cap to greet him from sixth place in the standings.

Two years later, in 1958, he said goodbye to athletics on the tracks of Guipúzcoa (Spain) at the Lasarte International Cross, with a brilliant sporting record that included, in addition to the aforementioned titles, eighteen world records in nine specialties athletic, beaten between 1947 and 1950.

In 1997, when he was seventy-five years old, he was named "Best Athlete of the Century" during the international meeting held by the athletics association "The Golden Shoe." In his last years he worked as a Physical Education teacher and held his position in the army of the Czech Republic. He died in Prague on November 22, 2000 as a result of a stroke.

Here you have a video of the 5.000 Helsinki '52 that Zatopek won with a spectacular 14:06