Has anyone read The Guardian's 50 Stunning Olympic Moments series?

Weebull · 22 Jun 2012 at 18:49

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/series/50-stunning-olympic-moments

It's nearing the end now, but they're all absolutely fantastic. Well worth a read if you haven't.

There's some recent stories which brought it all back to me (Kelly Holmes' double gold, Michael Johnson's world records), but also older entries, about people I'd only heard of, or even hadn't at all (Alan Wells, Wilma Rudolph).

I think the current one on Emile Zapotek might well be my favourite though:

In 1968 the Australian athlete Ron Clarke came to visit. One of the world's fastest distance runners for a decade, Clarke had suffered from a string of bad luck at major championships, and in that year's Olympics in Mexico City had collapsed and very nearly died from altitude sickness. For all his lack of success Zatopek respected him as an athlete and liked him as a person, and the two spent a pleasurable day together. When he dropped Clarke off at the airport, Zatopek embraced him warmly and handed him a small parcel. "Not out of friendship but because you deserve it," he said.

Clarke kept the package in his pocket until his plane was in the air. "I wondered whether I was smuggling something out for him. I retired to the privacy of the lavatory. When I unwrapped the box, there, inscribed with my name and that day's date, was Emil's Olympic 10,000-metre gold medal. I sat on that toilet seat and wept," Clarke said.

[DOD]Asprilla · 22 Jun 2012 at 22:02

The Derek Redmond story gets me every time.

semi-pro waster · 22 Jun 2012 at 22:22

I wasn't aware of them until now but I think you might just have given me something to do if the weather doesn't play nice tomorrow.

Emil Zatopek is a legend in the proper sense of the word.

HangTime · 23 Jun 2012 at 22:35

Certainly reads that way:

Also on the Czech team in London was the javelin thrower Dana Ingrova, who finished seventh. She happened to be precisely Zatopek's age, both having been born on 19 September 1922. They knew each other already but the relationship blossomed in London, where they passed time playing a long-distance, high-stakes game of catch using her javelin. He bought two gold rings from a shop in Piccadilly Circus. "So, we were both born on the same day," he told her. "What if, by chance, we were also to get married on the same day?"

Smooooooth.