Why they rank here
The Czech Locomotive ran with a grimacing, head-rolling style that looked agonised and proved unbeatable. His masterpiece came at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, where he won the 5000m, the 10,000m and — entering his first ever marathon almost on a whim — the marathon too, a treble at a single Games that will almost certainly never be repeated. He won four Olympic golds and a silver in all, and set 18 world records at distances from 5000m to 30 kilometres. Zatopek pioneered brutal interval training, running hundreds of 400m repetitions in army boots, methods that underpin distance training to this day. He also embodied the sport's conscience, later demoted and punished for supporting the 1968 Prague Spring. For sheer range within distance running — track speed married to marathon endurance in the same fortnight — no one has ever matched his Helsinki fortnight.
Career profile
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