About this item
For a decade after the Second World War, Emil Ztopek - "the Czech Locomotive" - redefined his sport, pushing back the frontiers of what was considered possible in terms of training, record-setting, and medal winning. He won five Olympic medals, set 18 world records, and went undefeated over 10,000 metres for six years. His dominance has never been equaled. And in the darkest days of the Cold War, he stood for a spirit of generous friendship that transcended nationality and politics. Ztopek was an energetic supporter of the Prague Spring in 1968, championing "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia.But for this he paid a high price. After the uprising was crushed by Soviet tanks, the hardline Communists had their revenge. Ztopek was expelled from the army, stripped of his role in national sport, and condemned to years of hard and degrading manual labor: cleaning toilets in a uranium mine. Only the protests of the sporting world saved him from a worse fate. By the time he was rehabilitated in 1989, he was old and broken, a shadow of the man he had been. Based on interviews with people across the world who knew him, as well as his widow, fellow Olympian Dana Ztopkov, journalist Richard Askwith breathes new life into the man and the myth and uncovers a glorious age of athletics and an epoch-defining time in world history.
About the Author
Richard Askwith is a Northamptonshire-based journalist and author whose passions include running, outdoor adventure and the traditions and ordinary people of the English countryside.His cult book about fell-running, FEET IN THE CLOUDS (2004) , won him the Best New Writer prize at the British Sports Publishing Awards and the Bill Rollinson Prize for Landscape and Tradition, as well as being shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and for the Boardman-Tasker Prize. More recently, UNBREAKABLE: THE COUNTESS, THE NAZIS AND THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS HORSE-RACE - a biography of the pioneering jockey Lata Brandisová - won Biography of the Year at the 2020 Telegraph Sports Book Awards. UNBREAKABLE was also long-listed for the William Hill award, as was his acclaimed 2016 book, TODAY WE DIE A LITTLE: EMIL ZÁTOPEK, OLYMPIC LEGEND TO COLD WAR HERO (also shortlisted for the Cross Sports Book Awards) . TODAY WE DIE A LITTLE marked Richard's first foray in the sporting history of the nation formerly known as Czechoslovakia. The resulting friendships - and semi-mastery of the Czech language - helped him to discover the extraordinary, hitherto forgotten story of Lata Brandisová.Richard's other books include THE LOST VILLAGE: IN SEARCH OF A FORGOTTEN RURAL ENGLAND (2008; named Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the 2009 Saga Grown-Up Awards) ; RUNNING FREE: A RUNNER'S JOURNEY BACK TO NATURE (2014; short-listed for the Thwaites Wainwright Prize) ; and PEOPLE POWER: REMAKING PARLIAMENT FOR THE POPULIST AGE (2018) , a short, radical proposal (part of Biteback's "Provocations" series) for reforming British politics.He is also co-author of LET IT GO (2012 & 2019) , Dame Stephanie Shirley's inspiring account of her life as a champion of women's rights and philanthropy.Richard has also edited several books - including the acclaimed A HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR IN 100 MOMENTS (2014) - for The Independent, where he worked from 1993 to 2016 in a number of senior roles including Executive Editor and Associate Editor.
