Back Into the Light : A New Czechoslovakian Government Has Rescued Olympic Champion Emil Zatopek From Obscurity

Emil Zatopek sought out the head of the Czech Olympic delegation at Helsinki. It did not promise to be a cheery discussion and what a shame because Zatopek, as always, felt exceptionally cheery.

Zatopek already had entered two races in the 1952 Olympic Games, the 10,000 and 5,000 meters, and he had won gold medals and set Olympic records in both. Still, he was out of favor with team officials for his attitude, which in their view was never quite deferential enough.

And now Zatopek wanted to discuss the marathon.

“The main coach of our team, he tried to warn me,” Zatopek said recently, and the memory brought a smile. “ ‘But you never run a marathon. You don’t know pace, tactics.’ But for me, no problem.”

Zatopek read in the newspaper that Jim Peters of Great Britain was the favorite in the marathon. The story gave Peters’ uniform number. With this information, Zatopek reasoned, what more was there to know?

On the day of the race Zatopek found Peters at the start and introduced himself.

“You are Peters?” Zatopek asked. “I said, ‘I am Zatopek, Czechoslovakia. Very glad to meet you.’ OK, I say, he must know how to run if he is favorite. For me, it is only to keep up with him.”

Having never run a marathon, Zatopek’s perfectly logical plan was to stick with the man favored to win. However, Peters took off at a startling pace, and Zatopek, who was running with a Swedish athlete, caught up with Peters and asked if the pace was too fast. Peters, annoyed, said that no, the pace was too slow. Zatopek thought he saw signs of fatigue in Peters but was unsure.

“I felt great pain in my muskscels,” Zatopek said. “There was refreshment table every five kilometers with oranges, lemons and Coca-Cola. But for me, no experience. I was not used to eating during training. No, for me it was to train and to eat after.”

Zatopek also acknowledges he believed he would be required to pay for whatever he took and had no money to give. So he watched as Peters and the Swedish runner Jansson took water and fruit at the aid stations. Zatopek thought about this food development, wondering if this might be one of the many elements of the marathon that the Czech officials warned him about.

“At the 25-kilometer refreshment station the organizer ran alongside and gave half a lemon to Jansson and half to me,” Zatopek said. “Jansson took it immediately, but I said, ‘No, I mustn’t take it.’ But he took it so I thought, ‘What to do? Should I go back? No, next time I will take two.’ ”

But having made that decision, Zatopek changed his mind when, 500 meters after the refreshment station, he watched Jansson falter and drop back. “No lemons for me,” Zatopek decided. For the entire 26.2-mile race Zatopek took no refreshment--and he won his third gold medal of the ’52 Games and set his third Olympic record.

Soon after leaving Jansson, Zatopek caught Peters, who was paying the price for his blistering early pace. Zatopek was leading by a wide margin, but he was in pain and very tired.

“I look ahead, and I can see nothing of the city,” Zatopek said. “I want to quit, yes, but how to get back to town? I am 20 kilometers away, so I say I must run back. So I run. The only thing I can see ahead is a very high tower with a flame on top, the Olympic flame. So I decide I must run to the flame.”

That flame still burns in Emil Zatopek, the greatest middle-distance runner of all time. He has four Olympic gold medals and one silver, having won the 10,000 in 1948 and finished second in the 5,000. In his career, which spanned three Olympiads and nearly 20 years, Zatopek set 18 world records.

And his accomplishments came before East Bloc countries recognized the propaganda value that world-class athletes represented. Far from getting the sophisticated governmental support under which East Bloc athletes have recently thrived, Zatopek succeeded in spite of the Czech government.

Zatopek has been stripped of his army officer’s rank, he has been publicly humiliated, been made to collect street garbage, has been held under virtual house arrest for a decade. But he has not been forgotten. This little man with the big heart has, though it all, demonstrated great humanity. And, through the forum of international sport, Zatopek had the opportunity to touch more lives than all the propaganda his government could ever hope to churn out.

Zatopek was brought to this country earlier this month by a group of running physicians at Stanford University. The doctors, who form the Over 50 Club, which has a rather blurred social-running function, had heard Zatopek was no longer able to run because of a back ailment. This thought gave the group shudders--the greatest runner of all time bereft of his ability to run--and they set about finding a way to heal Zatopek, who is 69.

These recreational runners took up donations and brought Zatopek to Stanford’s sophisticated medical center for tests and, perhaps, surgery. Also to get a close-up look at a legend.

To honor Zatopek, the Over 50 Club organized a mini-track meet. Running in the pouring rain, the middle-aged doctors happily performed for the Olympic champion. Zatopek, while soaked, smiled and clapped. “This is nice,” he said.

The tests revealed a pinched nerve that, if operated upon, might cause more problems than if left alone. The doctors said they were sorry, but there was nothing they could do. They could not fix it so that he could run again. Zatopek smiled and said, “No problem, thank you very much.”

But Zatopek was still in pain, and his friend Olga Connolly could not bear to witness it. She begged him to allow her take him to a massage therapist to get relief from the pain. He steadfastly resisted.

“After everything the doctors have done for me, I will not double-cross them,” Zatopek told her.

Because there was to be no surgery, Zatopek found himself with an extra week in California. Connolly, who knew Zatopek in Czechoslovakia when she was a world-class discus thrower there, arranged for him to come to Los Angeles and stay at her home. Connolly also typed out a sightseeing itinerary for Zatopek, who had never been to the West Coast. Her daughter, Merja--newly arrived from playing professional volleyball in Italy--was to be tour guide while Olga was working.

The tour weaved through Culver City, Manhattan Beach and through Palos Verdes Estates. Through it all, Zatopek sat in the car smiling, noting particularly bright flowers and, eyes narrowed, remarked on the sprawling homes.

“To live in such a place, how is it possible?” he said.

Stopping for coffee at a cafe, Zatopek abruptly left the table and walked among the flower beds, stepping gingerly and bending to examine plants he did not recognize. Oblivious to the glares of other patrons, Zatopek returned to his seat. There, he happily ate his croissant--making sure to tear a piece for himself and a piece for the birds chattering at his feet.

The scene is reminiscent of many Zatopek stories. He was always known as a runner who would help competitors. It was common for him to win races by a large margin--and it was common for Zatopek to finish a race, turn and greet his competitors as they crossed the finish line, offering them water.

Zatopek, who is multilingual, had a habit of talking to other runners during a race. This often irritated his competitors, who mistook his friendliness for arrogance. Many times in Olympic qualifying heats, Zatopek would slow down to allow other runners to pass him, or he would run alongside a struggling runner, giving support.

“He would always honestly and generously advise the other runners,” Connolly said. “And they would always do the opposite. They never trusted him. He would discuss strategy and tactics. No one would listen. And they always lost.”

Zatopek’s success in running was not born of beauty and grace. His was not the light tread, the floating body and impassive face. Some distance runners give the impression that nothing could make them happier than to run forever. Zatopek always looked as if his next step would be his last.

Zatopek suffered when he ran. He sweated. He twisted and staggered.

Sportswriter Red Smith found in Zatopek a favorite subject. At the 1952 Olympics, Smith wrote: “Four years ago, this gaunt and grimacing Czech with the running form of a zombie had made himself the pinup boy of the London games. Witnesses who have long since forgotten the other events still wake up screaming in the dark when Emil the Terrible goes writhing through their dreams, gasping, groaning, clawing at his abdomen in horrible extremities of pain. In the most frightful horror spectacle since ‘Frankenstein,’ Zatopek set an Olympic record for 10,000 meters in London. . . . This year he set records for both speed and human suffering at 10,000.”

Writing about the 5,000 final in Helsinki, Smith captured the excitement and improbable nature of Zatopek’s victory in which the Czech fell behind four times and each time fought back to the lead: “All through the race, Zatopek had commanded the rapt attention of spectators, and with every agonized step he had rewarded them. Bobbing, weaving, staggering, gyrating, clutching his torso, flinging supplicating glances toward the heavens, he ran like a man with a noose around his neck. . . . He seemed on the verge of strangulation; his hatchet face was crimson, his tongue lolled out. . . .”

To spectators watching Zatopek win the race, the whole affair was a cathartic experience. Fans would leave the stadium after a Zatopek race wrung out and spent, as if they had run to exhaustion.

The accounts were not written to be cruel. They are quite accurate. And it’s not as if Zatopek hasn’t heard all this before. He laughs at the descriptions. If he could have run pretty and still won, he would have done it.

“Other athletes come to see me and say, ‘Emil, it is horrible to see you run. Track and field is culture of natural movement, not this.’ But I was interested in my finish, not in being beautiful.”

Zatopek’s stubborn practicality served him best. Had he listened to his team officials it is probable that he would have never achieved at the level he did.

Since he began running at age 19, Zatopek always carved his own way. When curfews during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia restricted his training, Zatopek ran in place for miles in his apartment. He trained in heavy boots to make his legs feel light during competition.

Zatopek’s training principles were stunningly simple: run hard to build strength, run fast to build speed and, to build stamina, never rest.

“My opinion was very primitive,” Zatopek said. “Speed and stamina, speed and recovery. But I say that you must recover while running, not to have rest in between. Run fast and try to recover during the movement itself. And again and again. It was something that was unusual.”

It was more than unusual, it was unheard of. Training theory at the time called for distance runners to run long slow distance. Sprinters ran short sprints, rarely training at distances longer than they would run in competition. Zatopek, with his ideas about running repeat sets of certain distances and not resting between, was two decades before his time. His notions were the forerunners of interval training techniques that are the bedrock of long sprint and middle distance training.

“Before the London Olympics I run every day 5x200 meters, 20x400 meters and 5x200 meters, with 200 in between each. All together, with warmup run before and after training, it was 30 kilometers. I thought it would be enough.”

By even today’s high-performance standards, Zatopek’s regime was more than enough. He was running, at high speeds, more than 18 miles a day. If he appeared to be in agony when he was competing, it was nothing compared to the torture he put himself through in practice.

When he thought he might run the marathon in Helsinki, Zatopek decided to step up his training. So he ran 5x200 meters, 40x400 and 5x200 every day. Zatopek’s leg speed--developed in these excruciating solitary workouts--won him races. His heart and courage allowed him to persevere.

When, at age 34, he began to train for the marathon at the 1956 Olympics at Melbourne, Zatopek adjusted his training again. He knew he had to be strong, so Zatopek began to take training runs through the woods near Prague while carrying his wife Dana on his back. Pain was never a factor that Zatopek considered in his running. He prefered to ignore it. What he couldn’t ignore was the pain from the hernia he developed from carrying Dana on his back.

He had surgery, and doctors told Zatopek that he couldn’t run for two months. Zatopek listened and looked at the calender--the Olympics were only weeks away. Zatopek resumed training the day after he was released from the hospital.

He made the Czech team and placed sixth in the marathon at Melbourne Olympics, his last.

Zatopek is not a great political thinker. He endures politics only so long as it is a means to help people, which is why Communism With a Human Face so appealed to him. In the infamous Prague Spring of 1968, when the Czechs briefly threw off their Soviet yoke, Zatopek and his wife Dana signed The Manifesto of 2,000 Words. The Manifesto was a kind of declaration of independence, a call to the Czech people to fight for independence.

Spring gave way to summer, and by August Soviet tanks were rumbling though the streets of Prague. The new authorities took reprisals against those who opposed Soviet rule. Those dissidents were easy to find. Their names were on The Manifesto of 2,000 Words.

Zatopek, a national hero, was stripped of his rank as colonel in the army. He was kicked out of the Communist Party.

When he tried to find work in Prague he was told there was none . . . for him. He was forced to work farther and farther away from home. For a time Zatopek worked in uranium mines, operating a boring machine hundreds of feet underground.

He worked in the country on a geological research team, doing manual labor. He boss took pleasure in taunting the former sports hero--”You, Zatopek, bring me that 50 kilo (110-pound) sack of cement. You practice sport for 20 years and you are so weak. How can this be?”

Zatopek was silent. And every day invitations poured into the Czech government, asking for Zatopek to attend this track meet, this Olympic Games, this event to honor him. The government refused all requests. To the rest of the world, Zatopek dropped off the face of the earth.

“For me, it was not allowed to be part of sport,” he said. “I could not speak. I was not allowed to visit a competition. I could not leave. It was a bad time. There was no democracy and lack of human rights. People were critical of sportsmen because they had great privileges, many chances.”

With a new government, with democracy and with open borders, Zatopek has reappeared. He is in demand, and now he attends functions around the world. Zatopek is a happy man. He loves to sing. Though singing he has learned to speak six languages.

He doesn’t want to waste his time with anger over the past. Nor does he dwell on his own accomplishments, preferring to look to the future.

“It was my dream to give a good example to children and get them started,” Zatopek said, smiling sadly. “But it was only a dream.”

It is more than a dream. Through his efforts to work with young athletes in his country, Zatopek has had a rebirth of fame. To many young Czechs, Zatopek is the flame towards which they now run.