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Emil
Zatopek
He was born on 19 September 1921 in Czechoslovakia, a state that was created after the end of World War I. He was the son of a large family of  workers (8 children) from Moravia and grew up in a poor environment, surrounded by factories and coal mines. He quitted school at the age of 15 and started working in a shoe factory. Having taken up sport in that factory, Emil Zatopek would become renowned thirty years later as one of the greatest long-distance athletes of all times. Meanwhile, Czechoslovakia was invaded in 1939 by Germany, this being one of the causes of the outbreak of World War I. Until 1944, when the Germans withdrew from the country under the pressure of the victorious advance of the Soviets in the eastern front, Zatopek did not have many opportunities to practise sport systematically.
That opportunity was given to him after the end of the war. The changes brought about by the presence of the Red Army in Czechoslovakia gave the 23-year-old industrial worker the opportunity to enrol in the military academy of Prague. There he had the opportunity to show his abilities in running, especially the long distances, and participate in games, originally in his country and then in international sports meetings. Therefore, in 1946 he took part in the European championship in Oslo, finishing in the fifth place in the 5,000m. He was already 25 years old.
Two years later he was the athlete who, without being held in high regard by anyone, he impressed in the London Olympic Games winning the gold medal in the 10,000m and the silver in the 5,000m. In the following Olympic organization Zatopek was considered the favourite in the long distances and he made certain to not belie that characterization by winning both the 5,000m and 10,000m, as well as the marathon, in which he participated for the first time. He participated in one more Olympic organization, in the 1956 Melbourne Games, finishing fifth in the marathon, in a race won for the first time by Alain Mimoun. After that he gave up competitive sport, having won 5 Olympic medals (4 gold, 1 silver) and having set 18 world records in the long distances and a performance of 38 consecutive victories in the 10,000m between 1948 and 1954.
Nonetheless, he did not give up sport. His position in the army (he held the rank of colonel) was not incompatible with sport. On the contrary, in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries the armed forces were the nucleus for the development of sport. Therefore, Zatopek had been a top trainer until the summer of 1968.
The Soviet invasion of his country found him to be supporter of the "wrong" side. As a result he was removed from the army and from his position as a trainer and worked again for a long time as a worker in Moravia. He was married to Dana Zatopkova, golden Olympic winner in the javelin throw in 1952, and lived together until his death in November 2000.
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