The 'Locomotive' breath

Olympic legend Emil Zatopek, whose ungainly style and relentless running earned him the nickname "The Czech Locomotive", was the only long-distance athlete to win three gold medals at a single Games.

Zatopek, widely considered to be one of the 20th century's greatest Olympians, died on Wednesday aged 78 after being hospitalised last month following a stroke.

At the Helsinki Games in 1952, Zatopek swept to victory in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres, and the marathon within the space of eight days, each in Olympic record time. It was the first time he had run the 26-mile marathon.

Four years earlier, he had won a 10,000 metres gold medal and a silver in the 5,000 metres at the London Olympics.

The quiet and unassuming Zatopek's domination of his sport was total - he won 38 consecutive 10,000 metres races between 1948 and 1954.

After winning the 10,000 metres for the second time in 1952, the Czech decided to run the 5,000 metres because "the marathon won't be for a long time yet, so I simply must do something until then".

After retiring in 1958 to resume an army career, Zatopek was embroiled a decade later in the traumatic events which overtook his country when the Soviet Union crushed the liberal reforms of the Prague Spring in 1968 with a troop invasion.

Zatopek had supported the reforms of the then Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek and denounced the invasion.

But he chose not to flee his native land and as a result, he was dismissed from the army in 1970, expelled from the Communist Party and stripped of his title of Meritorious Master of Sports.

In July 1971, to the dismay of many of his followers, some of whom claimed he was under duress, Zatopek publicly recanted and said he was sorry he had been "one of the wild ones" who had supported the Dubcek reforms.

After some years working outside Prague as a labourer, he was "fully rehabilitated" in 1976 and took up work as an archivist in the State Sports Centre in Prague.

Afterwards, he would not speak of the events of 1968.

Emil Zatopek was born on September 19, 1922, in the small town of Koprivnice, in northern Moravia.

In his teens he went to work as an apprentice for a shoe firm in nearby Zlin, and it was there he began his running career at 19, finishing second in a street race.

By the time he retired, the slim, balding runner held five world records - he had set 18 in all.

He was noted for an ungainly running style which made it seem he was always on the point of collapse. Zatopek would jerk his arms up and down across his body like flailing pistons, his face contorted in an agonised expression.

His success owed much to his incredible stamina, which he built up through a gruelling self-imposed training programme.

One of the many anecdotes about Zatopek concerns the Helsinki marathon. Zatopek came abreast of one of the favourites, and asked: "Do you think the pace is fast enough?"

"Well, if you think you can go any faster, you try," his rival gasped. Zatopek did, and won the race.

To add to the glory of Zatopek's golden games in Helsinki, his wife Dana won the javelin event shortly after he took the 5,000 metres and they became the first husband and wife to win Olympic gold medals on the same day.

The couple, born on the same day, had married on their common birthday in 1948.

Zatopek was unable to repeat his Helsinki triumphs at the Melbourne Olympics of 1956. A hernia operation interrupted preparations, although he still finished sixth in the marathon.

Zatopek's reputation and popularity are such that he attended all subsequent Olympics as a guest of honour up to the 1984 Los Angeles Games which were boycotted by the Soviet bloc.

He continued to run into his 60's but in his mid-70's he finally began to slow down.

Over the past year he was hospitalised several times, once after breaking a hip, another time for pneumonia just before the stroke that ended the career of his country's greatest athlete.