Emil Zátopek

Emil Zátopek was born in Kopřivnice, Moravia, in 1922, one of eight children of a carpenter, and began running almost by accident while working in a shoe factory in Zlín. Self-coached and relentlessly experimental, he pioneered brutal interval training, and his pained, lurching style, once described as a man wrestling with an octopus, disguised a machine-like will.

He won the 10,000 metres at the 1948 London Olympics, but Helsinki in 1952 made him immortal: gold in the 5,000 metres, gold in the 10,000 metres, and then gold in the marathon, a distance he had never raced, all within eight days, a feat never repeated. In his career he set eighteen world records and became known everywhere as the Czech Locomotive.

Famed for his generosity, he once gave one of his Olympic gold medals to Australian runner Ron Clarke. After publicly supporting the Prague Spring in 1968 he was expelled from the army and the Communist Party and sent to menial labour, yet he was rehabilitated after 1989 and honoured at home and abroad. He died in Prague in 2000 following a stroke. His legacy is proof that kindness and iron will can live in the same heart.

Czech long-distance runner who won three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, including a marathon he had never run before, and redefined the limits of endurance.