Jim Peters

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jim Peters (actually James Henry Peters ; born October 24, 1918 in Homerton , London Borough of Hackney ; † January 9, 1999 in Thorpe Bay , Southend-on-Sea ) was a British long-distance runner . He went down in history as the first to complete a marathon in less than 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Life

Peters grew up in Becontree and played cricket and soccer before turning to athletics . During World War II he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1946 he was English champion over six miles (9656 m), and at the Olympic Games in London in 1948 he was eighth in the 10,000-meter run . Not satisfied with this result (he was overtaken by the winner Emil Zatopek ), he considered retiring, but was persuaded by his trainer Jimmy Johnston to switch to the marathon distance.

In 1951 he won the Polytechnic Marathon in 2:29:24 h on his debut , making him the fourth fastest runner of the year. In the following year he set a world record in the same place with 2: 20: 42.2. In the marathon of the Olympic Games in Helsinki he set an extremely high pace right from the start, covered the first 10 km in 31:55 minutes and led with 16 seconds ahead of Gustaf Jansson and Emil Zátopek . Shortly before km 20, Jansson and Zátopek caught up with Peters, and it is said that Zátopek (who ran his first marathon) asked Peters whether the pace was too fast. Although Peters was at the limit of his capabilities, he said no - but shortly afterwards had to let the Czech and Swedes go when they increased the pace. At 30 km, Peters was more than a minute behind Zátopek, but was still on the bronze medal. But then he had to give up with severe cramps in his left leg.

In 1953 he ran the four fastest times of the year: with 2: 18: 40.4 he was the first runner ever to break the 2:20 h mark in the Polytechnic Marathon, after which he was the third time in 2:22:29 h successive English marathon champion, improved his record in Turku to 2: 18: 34.8 h and remained at the Enschede marathon with 2:19:22 h as the first runner on a turning point distance below 2:20 (his previously achieved times were set up on point-to-point courses).

After finishing second in the Boston Marathon in 1954 and setting his fourth world best time in the Polytechnic Marathon with 2: 17: 39.4 (also his fourth English championship title in the marathon), he started at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver . First he won bronze over six miles. The marathon for those games took place on a hot, humid day, and out of 16 runners, only six crossed the finish line. Peters was not one of them, despite having reached the stadium 17 minutes ahead. Completely dehydrated , he fell over and over again, crawled on all fours and finally collapsed 200 meters from the finish. He was taken to a hospital where he was given IV fluids in an oxygen tent for the next seven hours .

On medical advice, Peters ended his sports career and settled in Essex as an optician . Peters was never a professional and always trained alongside his full-time work. He remained associated with his Essex Beagles association. Peters was married and had two children. For the last six years of his life, he battled cancer that led to his death.

The workout

Until 1948, Peters trained mostly on the track and rarely longer or faster than in competition. After the Olympic Games in 1948, he began to prepare exclusively for the marathon. As part of a long-term plan, he ran more every year and also built in more fast elements in interval form. It was not until 1952 that he began to train twice a day (10 km in the lunch break; 13 - 26 km in the evening) and thus achieved weekly performances of more than 100 miles (= 160 km). His training recommendations ensured that long before the innovations by Arthur Lydiard, training in England was comparatively extensive and without emphasis on interval training as in Germany.

Honors and memberships

In his honor, the 1999 London Marathon donated the Jim Peters Trophy , which goes to the fastest British runner in this race.

Jim Peters had been a member of the Freemasons Association since 1959 .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://www.racingpast.ca/john_contents.php?id=137 on . August 30, 2016
  2. ^ Frank Keating: "Two steps forward, three to the side. Oh, he's down again ” . In: The Observer . January 7, 2007
  3. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997) . In: N. Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change . Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, pp. 41-56.
  4. ↑ Jim Peters; Johnny Johnston; Joseph Edmundson: Modern middle- and long-distance running. London: Nicholas Kaye, 1957.
  5. ↑ Simon Turnbull: London Marathon: The boy racer enters roaring forties . In: The Independent . April 11, 1999
  6. ↑ The Library and Museum of Freemasonry: Sportsmen in English Lodges ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . July 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.freemasonry.london.museum
personal data
SURNAME Peters, Jim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Peters, James Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British long distance runner
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Homerton , London Borough of Hackney
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1999
Place of death Thorpe Bay , Southend-on-Sea