Douglas Alistair Gordon Pirie (10 February 1931 – 7 December 1991) was an English
long-distance runner
Long-distance running, or endurance running, is a form of continuous running over distances of at least . Physiologically, it is largely Aerobic exercise, aerobic in nature and requires endurance, stamina as well as mental strength.
Within e ...
. He competed in the 5000 m and 10,000 m events at the 1952, 1956 and
1960 Olympics and won a silver medal in the 5000 m in 1956, placing fourth in 1952. Born in
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
, Pirie grew up in
Coulsdon
Coulsdon (, traditionally pronounced ) is a town in south London, England, within the London Borough of Croydon, in the ceremonial county of Greater London since 1965. Prior to this it was part of the historic county of Surrey.
History
The loc ...
,
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
, and ran for the South London Harriers. He died of
cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) in
Lymington
Lymington is a port town on the west bank of the Lymington River on the Solent, in the New Forest district of Hampshire, England. It faces Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, to which there is a car ferry service operated by Wightlink. It is within the ...
,
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
.
Biography
Early career
In 1955 Pirie won the
BBC Sports Personality of the Year
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of just one, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. Several new awards have been ...
award. During that year he had beaten
Emil Zátopek
Emil Zátopek (; 19 September 1922 – 21 November 2000) was a Czech 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 me ...
the triple gold medallist in distance running at the 1952 Olympics.
[ Pirie was an exceptional cross-country runner, winning the English Championship three times.
Pirie broke five world records in the course of his career, his ]annus mirabilis
''Annus mirabilis'' (pl. ''anni mirabiles'') is a Latin phrase that means "marvelous year", "wonderful year", "miraculous year", or "amazing year". This term has been used to refer to several years during which events of major importance are re ...
being 1956, when on 19 June in Bergen
Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...
, Norway, he ran 13:36.8 for 5,000 m, beating Vladimir Kuts
Volodymyr Petrovych Kuts ( uk, Володимир Петрович Куц, russian: Владимир Петрович Куц, 7 February 1927 – 16 August 1975) was a Soviet long-distance runner. He won the 5000 and 10000 m races at the 1956 ...
(USSR), and knocking 25 seconds from his own personal best. On 22 June in Trondheim
Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...
, Norway, he beat the world 3000 metres record with 7:55.5, and on 14 September, in Malmö
Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...
, Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
, he set a new record with 7:52.7.
He can be seen in film held by the Cinema Museum in London of the 1952 English Nationals Ref HMO362.
Melbourne Olympics 1956
In the Olympics, held in Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
later that year, Pirie ran against Kuts in the 10,000 metres and despite the tactics of Kuts, an aggressive front runner whose bursts of speed were particularly damaging to a long-striding runner like Pirie, he stayed with him into the last mile when every other competitor had dropped well back. Kuts surrendered the lead for a short while, then made a sprint which Pirie could not match and he dropped back. Kuts said that if Pirie had stayed with him on that last sprint he would have dropped out of the race.
In the 5,000 metres Pirie took second place behind Kuts. Christopher Chataway, another British runner, had been selected on past performance. He had not competed at top level for more than a year as he was pursuing a media career. With Pirie and Derek Ibbotson
George Derek Ibbotson (17 June 1932 – 23 February 2017) was an English runner who excelled in athletics in the 1950s. His most famous achievement was setting a new world record in the mile in 1957.
Biography
Ibbotson was born in Huddersfi ...
, the third British runner, he was tracking Kuts and had moved ahead of them as they went into a bend. The Soviet runner was setting a much faster pace than Chataway had ever run. Chataway suffered an attack of stomach cramp
A cramp is a sudden, involuntary, painful skeletal muscle contraction or overshortening associated with electrical activity; while generally temporary and non-damaging, they can cause significant pain and a paralysis-like immobility of the aff ...
which caused him to slow down, and as Pirie and Ibbotson came out of the bend they found that Kuts had opened a gap. Pirie and Ibbotson ran round Chataway but Kuts was able to exploit his advantage and won the race with a margin of 11 seconds, the largest ever for this event in Olympic history. For the latter stages of the race Pirie was running what was virtually a front race, as Kuts had broken away, but he was still strong enough to hold off a late challenge by Ibbotson.
Between the Olympics
Pirie competed for England at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and finished fourth in the 1-mile and 3-mile events.[
]
Rome Olympics 1960
The 1960 Rome Olympics were held in the height of the summer and Pirie and other leading British contestants asked to go on ahead of the main party, at their own expense, so that they might acclimatise to the heat. They were refused permission, on the grounds that "we travel as a team". Pirie and his fellow 5,000 metres contestants were eliminated in the heats, leaving Pirie's only chance of a gold medal the 10,000 metres held later in the games. Pirie followed the favourite, Murray Halberg
Sir Murray Gordon Halberg (7 July 1933 – 30 November 2022) was a New Zealand middle-distance runner who won the gold medal in the 5000 metres event at the 1960 Olympics. He also won gold medals in the 3 miles events at the 1958 and 1962 Com ...
of New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
.
Halberg had won his major championships by making a tactical burst in the last mile and holding on to the lead – he had won the 5,000 metres at Rome by that tactic and Pirie's plan was to stay with him as he went forward. Halberg was probably suffering from his effort in the earlier race and as the race went on he failed to stay with the leaders. Pirie realised that he and Halberg had lost contact with them.
Post-Olympic career
For some years, after he had criticised them, sections of the press ran a campaign against Pirie particularly after the Olympics. In a radio interview with Eamonn Andrews
Eamonn Andrews, (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was an Irish radio and television presenter, employed primarily in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1980s. From 1960 to 1964 he chaired the Radio Éireann Authority (now the RTÉ A ...
soon after the games, the Australian runner Herb Elliott
Herbert James Elliott (born 25 February 1938) is a former Australian athlete and arguably the world's greatest middle distance runner of his era. In August 1958 he set the world record in the mile run, clocking 3:54.5, 2.7 seconds under the re ...
, referred to Pirie and Ibbotson who, having broken the world record for the mile in 1957, had never regained the same form and was not selected for Rome. Elliott said, "The British Press is the most vicious in the world. Their attitude to people like Pirie and Ibbotson is 'That bloke's on his way down, I'm going to kick him down and keep him there.'" In 1960 Pirie ran a sub-four minute mile in Dublin, clocking 3:59.9.
Pirie won the British Orienteering Championships
The British Orienteering Championships are the highest level of competition in Orienteering in the United Kingdom, along with the Jan Kjellström International Festival of Orienteering, JK Orienteering Festival.
1967 saw the first British Champion ...
in its first two years, 1967 and 1968, and won the first edition of the JK Orienteering Festival. He also represented UK at the 1966 World Orienteering Championships
The 1st World Orienteering Championships were held in the village of Fiskars, Finland, 1–2 October 1966.
Participants from eleven nations competed in the championships: Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, East Germany, Finland, Great ...
, and again at the 1968 World Orienteering Championships
The 2nd World Orienteering Championships were held in Linköping, Sweden, 28–29 September 1968.
The championships had four events; individual contests for men and women, and relays for men and women.
The men's individual course had 18 cont ...
.
The 1998 edition of ''The Guinness Book of Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'' lists Gordon Pirie under the "Greatest Mileage" entry, stating that he had run a total distance of in 40 years to 1981.
''Running Fast and Injury Free''
In his book ''Running Fast and Injury Free'' Pirie advocated running with initially making ground contact with the midfoot (as opposed to the usual style of long steps with landing on heels), 3–5 steps per second to reduce fatigue, damage to feet, and wasting of energy on vertical movement of body. He also describes his collaboration with Adolf Dassler
Adolf "Adi" Dassler (3 November 1900 – 6 September 1978) was a German cobbler, inventor and entrepreneur who founded the German sportswear company Adidas. He was also the younger brother of Rudolf Dassler, founder of Puma. Dassler was an innov ...
on designing running shoes with stronger toes (instead of the usual design with stronger heels) for better durability with his advocated running style.
References
External links
Gordon Pirie Resource Centre
Gordon Pirie's "Running Fast and Injury Free" , PDF , Running , Track And Field
Gordon Pirie's 'Running Fast and Injury Free' - Ultimate Edition 240307 , PDF
''Running Fast and Injury Free''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pirie, Gordon
1931 births
1991 deaths
People from Lymington
Sportspeople from Leeds
English male long-distance runners
Olympic athletes of Great Britain
Olympic silver medallists for Great Britain
Athletes (track and field) at the 1952 Summer Olympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 1960 Summer Olympics
Commonwealth Games competitors for England
Athletes (track and field) at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games
European Athletics Championships medalists
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
BBC Sports Personality of the Year winners
English people of Scottish descent
Alumni of St Mary's University, Twickenham
Medalists at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Olympic silver medalists in athletics (track and field)
Deaths from cholangiocarcinoma
Deaths from cancer in England