Items29The creator’s order
  1. 1Emil ZátopekEmil ZátopekThe ultimate late entry. At the 1952 Helsinki Olympics Zátopek had already won the 5,000m and 10,000m when he decided to run his first ever marathon, and won that too. His famously laboured style hid an interval-training regime of brutal volume that shaped how distance runners prepared for decades.…0i
  2. 2Abebe BikilaAbebe BikilaBorn 7 Aug 1932A late call-up to Ethiopia's team, Bikila ran the 1960 Rome marathon barefoot through the night streets and won, becoming the first Black African Olympic champion. Four years later in Tokyo he defended the title, wearing shoes this time, barely six weeks after appendix surgery. He was the first man…0i
  3. 3Frank ShorterFrank ShorterBorn 31 Oct 1947Shorter's 1972 Munich gold is often credited with sparking the American running boom, but his second Olympic marathon is the more complicated story. In Montreal in 1976 he took silver behind East Germany's Waldemar Cierpinski, whose name later surfaced in files on the state doping programme. The…0i
  4. 4Bill Rodgers (runner)Bill Rodgers (runner)Born 23 Dec 1947"Boston Billy" won the Boston Marathon four times and New York four times in a row between 1976 and 1979, while running a running shop and coaching on the side. He raced often and with visible joy, stopping to drink and even to tie a shoelace in his 1975 Boston win. His career shows what…0i
  5. 5Grete WaitzGrete WaitzBorn 1 Oct 1953A track 1,500m runner and schoolteacher, Waitz was invited to New York in 1978 essentially as a pacemaker for the women's field. She had never raced the distance, won in a world best, and went on to win the race nine times. Add the first women's world championship marathon title in 1983 and Olympic…0i
  6. 6Joan BenoitJoan BenoitBorn 16 May 1957Winner of the first women's Olympic marathon in Los Angeles in 1984, Benoit Samuelson made the US team only after knee surgery 17 days before the trials. In the Olympic race she broke away early, against the conventional wisdom of the day, and was never caught. Her longevity is the other half of…0i
  7. 7Carlos LopesCarlos LopesBorn 18 Feb 1947Proof that it is never too late. Lopes won Olympic 10,000m silver in 1976, then spent years dogged by injury before reinventing himself on the roads. He won the 1984 Los Angeles marathon aged 37, still the oldest men's Olympic marathon champion, and a year later in Rotterdam became the first man…0i
  8. 8Steve Jones (runner)Steve Jones (runner)Born 4 Aug 1955An RAF aircraft technician who trained around his duties, Jones set a world record of 2:08:05 in Chicago in 1984 with almost no marathon experience behind him. He raced from the front with little regard for even pacing, won London in 1985, ran 2:07:13 back in Chicago that autumn and later took New…0i
  9. 9Rosa MotaRosa MotaThe purest championship marathoner of her era. Mota never held the world record, yet she won three straight European titles, the 1987 world title and Olympic gold in Seoul in 1988, after bronze in 1984. She won Boston three times as well. Her racing was about reading the field and timing the move…0i
  10. 10Ingrid KristiansenIngrid KristiansenA former cross-country skier, Kristiansen became the only athlete to hold the world records at 5,000m, 10,000m and the marathon at the same time. Her 2:21:06 in London in 1985 stood for 13 years, and she won London four times plus Boston twice and New York once. She is the range story on this list:…0i