"I jump into a sand pit for a living"
Endurance
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Rick Broadbent,London, Bloomsbury 2016. ISBN: 978-1-4729-2022-5
Former athletics correspondent of The Times, Rick Broadbent documents the career and life of Emil Zatopek, probably the greatest distance runner ever. As an experienced athletics writer, he is well qualified to evaluate Zatopek’s careeer.
One interesting insight from the book is the assertion that it was not Zatopek’s idea but
Lieutenant Colonel Sabl’s that he should run the 5000, 10,000 and marathon treble in the 1952 Olympics.
The book also documents his fall from grace when his is accused of being a traitor, barred from speaking to journalists or westerners, given menial jobs, expelled from the Communist Party and sacked by the army.
Broadbent addresses the issue of Zatopek’s attitude to issues outside of sport – his courageous support of Stanislav Jungwirth, who was excluded from the Olympics for political reasons and at other times his failure to speak up. Broadbent comments: “He was a pragmatic soul and would bend with the wind if it made for an easier life. Later, he would be held up as a courageous fighter for liberty, but others said that his motives were more expedient” and “not as politically rigid as later commentators would paint him”.
I recently read a statement in a book*, quoting the Czechoslovak Baptist Convention, that Emil was “a committed Christian who was not afraid to profess his faith in spite of living in an atheistic society”. While this book refers in great detail to the Christian faith of Zatopek’s mentor and coach, Jan Haluza, there is no reference to any faith on Zatopek’s part. He is rather describes as a Communist and a nationalist, but someone who wanted “a Communism that would work”.
A nice epitaph on him is: “Few sportspeople have ever been so loved or admired. He also came up with some of the most abiding mantras of sport: ‘If you want to run, run a mile; if you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.’”
* Communicating on the playing Field, Josef Solc, Xulon Press, 2009