The Los Angeles Times du lieu suivant : Los Angeles, California • 107

36 Part VlllWcdncsday, July 25, 1984 CooAnfldeoSIimeo ZATOPEK Continued from Page 14 "I went up to him and said, 'Please, are you He said he was. I said, 'I am Zatopek. I am glad to meet They became very close that day. Peters immediately took off from the pack and Zatopek, along with Sweden's Gustaf Jansson, went after him. "I thought the pace was too fast," Zatopek says.

"I asked him, 'Jim, is the pace too He said, 'No, it's not fast But a little more than halfway through the race, Peters collapsed. Now what? "I didn't know what to do," Zatopek said. Keep running, is all. "Inside of the body, is like tendons breaking," Zatopek said. "You must stop this stupid running.

But we are running toward the city. It is better to keep running." The pace grew faster and faster as Zatopek headed for home. Jansson couldn't keep up and Zatopek entered the stadium alone to cheering that bordered on hysteria. His winning time of 2:23:03.2 in his first marathon was an Olympic record. Now, he was a hero to match all heroes, maybe the greatest runner of all time.

Not even Nurmi could win the distance triple. Back in Czechoslovakia, Zatopek's name was on everyone's lips. There was a reception for him and Dana, and they didn't get home until late. By that time, they hoped to sneak in quietly. "The superintendent of our building was my great enemy," Zatopek said, giggling again.

"He lived on first floor and we lived above him. I would jog in the apartment and he would yell. Dana would throw her medicine ball and I would try to catch it. But when it missed, boom. He would scream, 'You must go to stadium.

House is to sleep, not to make "When we get to our home, a big crowd is outside and the house is like for Christmas. I whisper. 'The super But the super had arranged it all. He was so proud, so many medals. He was now a big fan.

"So Dana and I decided to respect his wishes. After two weeks, he came to me, 'What is this? I don't hear any noise. You are not active enough in your training. Please, go to A Zatopek Workout: 100 Times 400 Meters Work meant running, which was no work at all for Zatopek. A couple of records would fall every year, including the 5,000 meters owned for a dozen years by Gunder Hagg.

As his times decreased, his practice scheduled increased. "It was so stupid," he said. "It is quality, not quantity, that is important. But I ran 50 times 400 meters. And for two weeks, I ran 100 times 400 meters." By the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, he was 34 and starting to slip a little.

Then, his experiment of carrying Dana on his shoulders resulted in a hernia operation only six weeks before the Games. Advised not to run at all, he ran in the marathon and finished a poor sixth. The next year, he was winning races again, but Dana was busy trying to talk him out of it. "You should stop with your running," Dana told him. "Always young people come to competition and you take first prize.

You take away their courage. One day they will shoot you on the track." Never at a loss for words, Zatopek shot back: "I will stop this stupid running if you stop the javelin throwing." A deal was struck, then broken. Dana was the silver medalist in Rome in 1960, She then retired, putting the family haul at five golds and two silvers. A nice ending. If only that were the ending, languages he had mastered.

Upon turning 60, the earliest possible retirement age, Zatopek became a pensioner, Free at last, He talks of those days, or around them: "In our country there was some change in 1968, There was big discussion. Everyone spoke out No strikes like in Poland, but discussing, discussing. It was like football game, the referee blows the whistle, end of match. For the football players, not possible to say: 'We must keep on "They came to a decision. End of discussion.

One side is right and the other side must be quiet. We live in such a country, a delicate question, but it is true Maybe if after '68, Russian troops came here and stayed here and took some garrisons, the following situation was to reduce our army. Hmmm, who to let go? Like me, wonderful, without function. As sportsman, he was good. As officer, nothing.

It was very friendly. It was told, 'Please, Emil, if you find something else Friendly? Well. When Zatopek was invited to some international function, there was always grumbling. Why all these invitations? As if he were to blame. But there was no thought of not allowing him to go.

Just grumbling. It did not make for an easy life, but Zatopek was not one to complain. But when it became possible, he retired. Now he runs no more. A problem with his left leg two years ago made him a long-distance walker.

But he enjoys himself, his house, his garden, his busy retirement, his freedom. And, especially, his past. "From time to time, people come to talk," he says, almost wistfully. "It is good to talk and to discuss and to reminisce. The records, they're all gone.

But the memories. The memories live on. i The Zatopek home is a simple affair, but it's theirs, Zatopek supervised the building, brick by brick, Dana has decorated their home in the fashion of her homeland of Moravia painted plates and dishes, many flowers. What you don't see are medals, The cups and plates, it seems, Dana gave away as prizes to the young javelin throwers she coaches. One gold medal was lost (stolen?) when Zatopek allowed his collection to be shown in an exhibition.

Another was given to Ron Clarke, the great Australian distance runner who never won one himself. If you ask to see the medals, Zatopek will call for Dana to retrieve them and, good Central European wife that she is, she'll bring the medals and she'll bring lunch and she'll even consent to an interview if you insist. Zatopek enjoys being interviewed, enjoys talking of the past. His blue eyes light up, his voice intones the ups and downs of his career. The downs began soon enough.

When he retired, he tried coaching, but that didn't work out. He was a colonel, but without a command. And then came the attempt to liberalize Czechoslovakia. Zatopek, who had seen the world, spoke out for human rights, glad to be back in the race. But when the government fell and the liberals had been taught their lesson, there was no room for Zatopek.

He was stripped of his commission and run out of the Communist party. For a time, he and Dana lived in a trailer deep in the forest, where Emil worked for a geological team. The world did not forget, however, and as the invitations continued to come in, the Czechs didn't know what to do with him. Eventually, Zatopek was moved to a low -level job in sports information, reading pamphlets on training techniques to take advantage of the six NURMI Continued from Page 3 1 Hourly ozone averages, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

1920,1924,1928 THE MAKING OF A LEGEND HOW PAAVO NURMI WON 9 GOLD MEDALS IN 3 OLYMPICS Key: Federal clean air standard 1 1st stage smog episode; air unhealthful for everyone. 2 2nd stage smog episode; air hazardous for everyone. No data available Source: South Coast Air Quality Management District 0 9 10 11 I 2 3 4 6 6 7 9 10 11112)4(6) LosAngelesJL'! 0 I nT" Ql jLos Angeles Tii iColiseumj i-f PJTJtjtqtjj lp: WfgjM San Bernardino L-f I I 1 L7 1 1 1 2 llllli VvS. Riverside 2 IBl jLong Beach i frl 1 WjjjF 6 "Nt. Anaheim -11 9 10 II I 2 3 4 6 6 8 10 I 2 3 4 i 7 1920 ANTWERP 10,000 Meters 1.

Nurmi Finland 31:45.8 2. Guillemot France 31:47.2 3. Wilson Britain 31:50.8 Cross-Country 1. Nurmi Finland 27:15.0 2. Backman Sweden 27:17.6 3.

Liimatainen Finland 27:37.4 Note Nurmi also won gold medal as member of Finland's cross-country team. 1924 PARIS 1,500 Meters 1. Nurmi Finland 3:53.6 2. Scharer Switzerland 3:55.0 3. Stallard Britain 3:55.6 5,000 Meters 1.

Nurmi Finland 14:31.2 2. Ritola Finland 14:31.4 3. Wide Sweden 15:01.8 Cross-Country 1. Nurmi Finland 32:54.8 2. Ritola Finland 34:19.4 3.

Johnson United States 35:21.0 Note Nurmi also won gold medals as member of and cross-country teams. 1928 AMSTERDAM 10,000 Meters 1. Nurmi Finland 30:18.8 2. Ritola Finland 30:19.4 3. Wide Sweden 31:00.6 indicates Olympic record.

mllll Illllllll 9 10 II I 2 3 4 9 6 7 9 10 11 I 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 II 1 2 3 4 9 6 7 9 10 II 1 2 3 4 6 7 Legendary Trivia Playing Dress-Up Hurt Athletes in 1900 that Nurmi, coming back from the 1,500, would tire if they set a fast pace. They did, but Nurmi didn't lose them and took the lead for the first time halfway through the race. Ritola, who had won the 10,000 meters earlier in the Olympics, stayed right behind Nurmi. With 20 yards to go, Ritola pulled even, and then Nurmi moved ahead with one final burst. He won by about a yard in the Olympic record time of 14:31.2.

So, in an hour and a quarter Nurmi had accomplished what was believed impossible, winning both the 1,500 and 5,000. But the indefatigable Finn would run some more. On the fifth day, in sweltering heat, Nurmi won the cross-country race by nearly 90 seconds over Ritola, who had won at the same distance on the track. So now, he had two more gold medals, individual and team. He collected a fifth gold medal for the following day by when Finland won the team race.

Adrian Paulen, former president of the IAAF, who competed as a half-miler and quarter-miler for the Netherlands in the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, said that what Nurmi accomplished in the team race, considering the circumstances, rivals his historic double in the 1,500 and 5,000. "There was an energy plant near the stadium that used all kinds of fuel waste and everything went into the oven," said Paulen, who helped plan the world championship meet here. "The stuff that came out of the chimneys was bad for the health. The cross-country runners were poisoned nothing more or less from the smoke. "We were in the stadium and had no idea what was happening.

And we still didn't when Nurmi entered the stadium as the leading cross-country runner. Then, Ville Ritola, the Finn, ran into the stadium and he was staggering like a drunken man and we knew something was wrong. "A Swedish runner came in and he almost fell down. Then a French runner collapsed on the track. Most of the runners didn't even get to the stadium because of the fumes.

Three were hospitalized and one was on the verge of dying. "But Nurmi wasn't apparently affected. He was truly a remarkable runner. He was an example for all of us on how to achieve something in track and field." Paulen knew Nurmi if anyone knew him. "He was a loner," Paulen said.

"No one could get close to him. I remember that we were on a bus going to a party in Paris from Colombes, our Olympic Village, on the night that Nurmi won the 1,500 and 5,000. It was a distance of about six miles. "We looked out the window and there was Nurmi, walking to Paris even though he had competed in the 1,500 and 5,000 a few hours earlier." Nurmi continued to set world records after the 1924 Games, many at odd distances, and in a five-month tour of the United States he reportedly had 68 races, losing only two. In his last competitive Olympics, the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, Nurmi won the 10,000, finished second to Ritola in the 5,000 and got a silver medal in the steeplechase, an event in which he was inexperienced.

His record medal count was 12, four ahead of Ritola and Ray Ewry of the United States, who got all of his medals in the standing high jump, long jump and triple jumps Olympic events that were discontinued at the turn of the century. But Nurmi would run in one more Olympics. He startled the crowd at Helsinki in 1952 by appearing suddenly to run the final lap with the Olympic torch. He was 55 then, with knobby knees and a balding head, but the flowing stride was unmistakable. The applause from his countrymen, and others, rose to a thunderous crescendo when he came into view, and national teams broke ranks and dashed to the edge of track to get a look at him.

Nurmi, by all accounts, was not a warm man, and an austere life as a youngster probably molded his character. He was born in Abo, Finland, in 1897, and when he was 12 his father died. He went to work in a foundry at 15 to support his mother, brother and two sisters. He reportedly became a vegetarian for lack of meat, not by choice. As a youngster, Nurmi was influenced to become a runner by the accomplishments of Finland's Hannes Kolehmainen, a triple gold medal winner in the 1912 Olympics.

Nurmi developed his stamina with solitary practice runs of 50 miles a week. This rigorous training was the base that enabled him to run lap after lap in his competitive years without showing fatigue and maintaining an even pace. It is said that he raced against streetcars as a young man. And legend has it that as a solider at 18 he could run 15 kilometers (more than nine miles) in less than one hour while in full military gear with a knapsack full of sand. His running style high, long strides on his toes, with hands slightly clenched against his chest is not considered orthodox form today.

Modern distance runners take shorter strides and swing their arms more freely. Regardless of style, Nurmi was a master of pace and he seemingly ran against the stopwatch he held, not his competition. 1960, 1964 THE MAKING OF A LEGEND HOW ABEBE BIKILA WON TWO GOLD MEDALS IN MARATHON 1960 ROME 1. Bikila Ethiopia 2:15:17 2. Rhadi Morocco 2:15:42 3.

Magee New Zealand 2:17:19 1964 TOKYO 1. Bikila Ethiopia 2:12:12 2. Heatley Britain 2:16:20 3. Tsuburaya Japan 2:16:23 indicates Olympic record indicates world record Nurmi, who grew up in poverty, became a successful businessman after he retired as a runner in the early 1930s. It is said that his earnings as an "amateur" launched his business career.

He was a contractor and also owned a haberdashery in Helsinki. Those fortunate enough to find Nurmi in his shop would walk away with an autographed tie paying a handsome price. His marriage of a year in the 1930s ended in divorce when his wife reportedly disapproved of her husband stretching the feet of their infant son to condition him to become a runner. Paulen recalls that he and sprinter Charley Paddock and Paul Martin, a half-miler from Switzerland, were in Nurmi's home town of Abo in 1925 and visited the famous runner. "He never laughed," Paulen said, "and I was determined that he would.

So I took a picture of him at his house and told him, 'Laugh, damn it, He did, and that picture maybe the only one of him laughing is in a book the IAAF published a few years ago called '70 Years in Nurmi didn't grant many interviews even in his later years, when some men mellow. But he was prophetic. In 1946, eight years before Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile, Nurmi said it was inevitable that someone would do it. Only four Americans have won gold medals at distances farther than 800 meters since the 1908 Olympics Frank Shorter, marathon, 1972; Billy Mills, 10,000, 1964; Bob Schul, 5,000, 1964, and Horace Ashenfelter, steeplechase, 1952. That supports what Nurmi said in 1964: "The U.S.

is not a nation of distance runners because it has too many autos and too much television. There are not many good long distance runners in any nation with a high standard of living. We have the same problem in Finland now as we get more cars and more luxury. But all the same, occasional great runners come along and the best mile time may yet go below 3:50." When Nurmi made his prediction in January, 1964, Herb Elliott was the world record-holder in the mile at 3:54.5. Nine years later, a year before he died, Nurmi wasn't surprised when New Zealand's John Walker lowered the world mile record to 3:49.4.

Paulen said Nurmi was bitter about being suspended from the 1932 Olympics and would have virtually nothing to do with athletics in Finland. However, he is still revered here. Timo Siukonen, a sportswriter for the Helsingin Sanomat, said he was born the year that Nurmi stirred the emotions of his nation by carrying the torch into the Olympic Stadium. "To me, he's a national hero," Siukonen said. "He was way before my time, but I have read of his achievements.

People younger than myself might look up to Lasse Viren (the Olympic 5,000 and 10,000 gold medalist in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics). They know of Nurmi but don't realize the amazing things he accomplished." The first U.S. woman to win a gold medal in the Olympic Games was Margaret Abbott. In the 1900 Games at Paris, Abbott won the women's golf, shooting 47 for nine holes. Abbott, 5-foot-ll, was a 22-year-old Chicago socialite who traveled to Paris in 1899 with her mother, literary editor and novelist Mary Ives Abbott, so she could study art.

Abbott later told relatives that she won the tournament "because all the French girls apparently misunderstood the nature of the game scheduled for that day and turned up to play in high heels and tight skirts." Golf was dropped as an Olympic sport after the 1904 Games at St. Louis. The men's champion that year was Canada's George Lyon, an eccentric who didn't pick up a golf club until he was 38 years old. Before that, he had competed successfully in baseball, tennis and cricket. Once, he even set a Canadian record in the pole vault.

Lyon was 46 when he won the Olympics. On the course, he was an endless source of cheerful energy, singing, telling jokes and even doing handstands. In the match play final, he beat 23-year-old Chandler Egan of the United States, 3 and 2. He was awarded a $1,500 sterling silver trophy, which he accepted after walking down the path to the ceremony on his hands. Randy Williams was a USC freshman when he won the Olympic long jump in 1972.

Incredibly, he never won the event in a dual meet against UCLA. More amazing, he lost to four different Bruins. In order, they were Finn Bendixen, Jerry Herndon, James McAlister and Willie Banks. Banks was a freshman when he beat Williams, a senior, in the 1975 USC-UCLA meet. And later in the same meet, Banks was a hero in the triple jump.

USC was leading the meet with one round left in the final event, the triple jump. Banks was third behind two Trojans when, on his final attempt, he went 55-VA, almost two feet better than his previous best, to win the event and give UCLA the victory. In the first modern Olympics at Athens in 1896, the winner of the marathon was Spiridon Louis of Greece. When Louis appeared at the marble entrance to the stadium, Prince George and Crown Prince Constantine of Greece rushed down to greet him. Then they escorted him the rest of the way to the finish line where Louis summoned enough energy to bow to the delighted King George.

Leading the event with only four miles left was Australia's Edwin Flack, who only hours earlier had won the 800 meters. Fatigue finally overtook Flack, who began to stagger. A Greek fan tried to help him, but Flack, thinking he was being attacked, smashed the helpful Greek with his fist and knocked him down. Flack was loaded into a carriage and driven to the dressing room at the stadium, where he was attended to by Prince Nicholas himself and revived with a drink of egg and brandy. After Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila won his second gold medal in the marathon in the 1964 Games at Tokyo, he entertained the crowd by doing stretching and bicycling exercises and generally looking like he was sorry the race had been so short.

At the medal ceremony, none of the Japanese officials knew the Ethiopian national anthem, so the band took the opportunity to play the Japanese national anthem instead. In the 1920 marathon at Antwerp, Valerio Arri of Italy celebrated his bronze medal by performing three cartwheels as soon as he crossed the finish line. Much of this material is taken from "The Complete Book of the Olympics" by David WaUechinsky..