Emil Zatopek won the 5,000 meters, the 10,000 meters, and the marathon at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. No one had ever won all three distance events at a single Games. He had never run a marathon before. He asked the race favorite for pacing advice at the starting line, then ran away from him.

This episode traces Zatopek from his factory-worker childhood in Czechoslovakia through his revolutionary training methods, his triple gold in Helsinki, and his fall from grace after the Prague Spring.

• He won three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics in the 5,000m, 10,000m, and marathon
• He had never run a marathon before winning the Olympic marathon in his first attempt
• His interval training methods were considered insane by contemporaries but became standard practice
• He was stripped of his military rank and for ...