The Kings Of Distance: A Study of Five Great Runners by Peter Lovesey

Author:Peter Lovesey [Lovesey, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2016-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

Zátopek

We were totally unprepared for Zátopek. In 1948 we were still spellbound by that fantastic figure, Nurmi. The sovereignty of Finnish distance running was everywhere revered. Nurmi’s records had vanished, but they had fallen to his countrymen, who studied his methods, trained with equal resolution and aped his style. So we had the epoch of the Silent Finns, scores of impeccable stylists, gliding to records in long, smooth strides, with chests and heads held high, contemptuous of less aesthetic movers, respectful only of the watch. The fist of world record breakers in the distance events between 1912 and 1949 reads like a Finnish national census; in the main events, the 5,000 and 10,000 metres, only Sweden’s Gunder Hägg, with a record in the former, prevents a monopoly. And at each Olympic Games, the Finnish hegemony in these events was confirmed; before 1948 only Guillemot (5,000 m, 1920) and Kusociński (10,000 m, 1932) prevented the runners in light blue from winning every gold medal, and each of them narrowly defeated a Finn. The belief crystallized that distance running had been brought to perfection by the Nordic runners. If times were to be improved, the new records would arise from a stricter adherence to Nurmi’s principles.

The World War in 1939, and Russia’s attack on Finland in the same year pushed theories of distance running far into the background. But after six years, athletics underwent a phoenix-like rebirth. The widespread upsurge of enthusiasm for the sport produced many exciting new names. In England a few Peter Pans of the pre-war days, Finlay, Wooderson and Holden, returned to dominate their events, but there were exciting and exotic newcomers, McDonald Bailey, Wint and Prince Adedoyin. There was enormous support for big meetings; I can remember, on August Bank Holiday, 1945, standing in disappointment with thousands of others, outside the packed White City Stadium, in which 54,000 watched Hägg, Andersson and Wooderson.

It was a strange, freakish period. Six years of war had prevented the season by season advance of young athletes towards their peak; talented newcomers, deficient in technique, contended with ageing but skilful athletes who had been deprived of their best competitive years. Standards in every event were uncertain, and many athletic traditions were put in jeopardy, or forgotten. Some followers of the sport wondered whether even the Finnish distance runners might have faded into oblivion. At the last Olympic Games they had finished first, second and third in the 10,000 metres, and first and second in the 5,000 metres (Salminen fell and finished sixth), but that was in 1936, three years before the war.

The first crack in the citadel was made by Britain’s Sydney Wooderson at the 1946 European Championships. In his first important 5,000 metres race, the tiny silver-haired veteran with owlish spectacles outsprinted everyone to win with ease in 14 mins 8.6 secs. The first Finn, Viljo Heino, finished in fourth place, but won the 10,000 metres, to prevent complete national mourning.

Heino was to carry the main hopes of Finland at the London Olympic Games of 1948.

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