Emil Zátopek Emil Zátopek Emil Zátopek (; 19 September 1922 – 22 November 2000) was a Czechoslovak long-distance runner best known for winning three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He won gold in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres runs, but his final medal came when he decided at the last minute to compete in the first marathon of his life. He was nicknamed the "Czech Locomotive". In 1954, Zátopek was the first runner to break the 29-minute barrier in the 10,000 metres. Three years earlier in 1951, he had broken the hour for running 20 km. He
Emil Frey Union. Emil Frey Emil Johann Rudolf Frey (24 October 1838 – 24 December 1922) was a Swiss politician, soldier in the American Civil War and member of the Swiss Federal Council (1890–1897). Frey was born in Arlesheim, Switzerland, as the son of Emil Remigius Frey. His father was a liberal separatist politician. Frey's family provided refuge for Friedrich Hecker when he fled the repression following the revolution in Germany in 1848. Frey later emigrated to the US, arriving in Belleville, Illinois, an area with many Forty-Eighters, veterans of the 1848 revolutions in Europe. For a while he worked for Hecker,