By Mark Staniforth, PA Sport

The gritted teeth, the drowning arms, the lolling head. Emil Zatopek was not the most graceful of Olympic athletes.

But neither was Zatopek an ordinary Olympic athlete.

His tortured style belied an extraordinary gift which elevated him into long distance running's pantheon.

His statistics say it all.

In his whole career Zatopek, born in 1922 in Koprivnice in the then Czechoslovakia, won 261 of his 334 races at all distances.

He won his first 38 10,000metres races. At his peak, he won 69 consecutive events at all distances and was far superior to anyone else in the world.

In all, he set 18 world records from 5,000m to 25km. In 1954 he lowered his own 10,000m mark - one day after he had run a world record for the 5,000m.

Through it all Zatopek, Olympic gold medallist in 1948 and triple winner in 1952, maintained a quiet dignity and a noble ideal which made him a hero to so many more than the generations of runners who pounded the track in his wake.

Those unflinching beliefs almost cost him the world - and the world him - at the Helsinki Games of 1952.

Zatopek had threatened to sacrifice his Olympic dream in support of his compatriot Stanislav Jungwirth, a 1500m runner who was omitted from the team because Jungwirth's father, an anti-communist activist, was a political prisoner.

Zatopek stayed in Prague with him. Within 48 hours, the communist authorities caved in under the weight of massive national expectation and reinstated the pair to the team.

Jungwirth performed creditably enough. Zatopek won the 10km and 5,000m in spectacular fashion before facing his biggest test: his first ever marathon.

"The marathon is not a very difficult race," Zatopek said later.

"Other races are all about speed. The marathon is all about rate of recovery. Having the one hour record, I thought I might do all right."

He did all right. Zatopek beat the British favourite Jim Peters, who collapsed, and raced into the stadium with plenty to spare, his feet covered in blood.

It was a towering high point for a man whose inauspicious beginnings never hinted at the glory that was to come.

"I was not very talented, I never imagined I would succeed," Zatopek insisted.

At the age of 19, Zatopek timed four minutes 20 seconds for the 1500m - many could do a mile faster.

Three years later, he had broken national records for 2,000m, 3,000m and 5,000m.

The legend of Emil Zatopek had been born.