14 March 2005
The story of John Lucas, who is visiting the Olympic Museum
in Lausanne this week, is a far from ordinary one. In 1952,
aged 26, he crossed the United States, travelling from his
native Boston to Los Angeles to take part in the US Olympic
Trials for the Games of the XV Olympiad in Helsinki. By
finishing 11th, he just missed a place in the 10,000m. How
frustrating!
Frustration
It took him a long time to get over this, and was in tears
for weeks, he admits. But eight years later, he was in Rome,
determined to gain revenge of a sort. Dawn on the day before
the Games began saw him alone on the track of the Eternal
City, setting out to run his own 10,000m!
From Rome to Athens, more than 100 Olympic kilometres�
He would continue to do this for 50 years, at every edition
of the Olympic Games, with the same fire in his heart.
Except in Moscow, in 1980, as one press story reports. �Not
true!�, he exclaims. �Of course I was there. But when it
came to entering the stadium, I was given a categoric �nyet�
by the government.� As America boycotted those Games, the
refusal is understandable. Undaunted, the keen runner still
covered his 10 km � around the outside of the stadium!
Today, after Sydney and more recently Athens, he is proud to
have covered more than 100 Olympic kilometres, without
counting the more than 160,000 others he has clocked up
during his life.
Each to his own!
When you ask him why he does it, John Lucas replies,
imperturbably: �Some people smoke, others take drugs, and
others climb mountains or God knows what else. This is my
thing! Of course, I am slightly slower each time, but at
least I never lose!�
Honorary IOC lecturer
John Lucas has not spent all his life on running tracks.
After teaching in Boston, he was a professor of physical
education for 37 years at Penn State University. In 1991, he
was appointed Honorary IOC Lecturer for North America by the
then IOC President, Juan Antonio Samaranch. He also received
the Olympic Order in 1996, at the 105th IOC Session in
Atlanta.
(from the International Olympic
Committee)
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