Introducing…
Pat Butcher is a writer, journalist, television producer and commentator, now concentrating mostly on books and blogging.
Although writing occasionally on subjects of general interest, his speciality is track and field athletics.
He first attended the Olympic Games in Munich 1972; and has covered all World Athletics Championships and Olympic Games as writer and/or commentator since 1980.
Please consult the menu for links to a variety of projects, from the recently published QUICKSILVER, The Mercurial Emil Zátopek; to the highly acclaimed The Perfect Distance: Ovett & Coe, The Record Breaking Rivalry, which is being made into a film; to the television documentaries, Arabian Knight, The Story of Said Aouita and Race For Kenya; to the radio programme Great Lives; and to various newspaper, magazine and website articles.
Latest Articles
HYBRID VIGOUR
You may remember that quaint old adage, ‘Keep Politics Out of Sport’. It had its heyday among apologists for the South African government at the time of the sporting boycott of the apartheid era. There has probably never been a dumber slogan. It would be like Castor without Pollux or Laurel without Hardy. Politics has…
THE MAGIC NUMBER.
The medals are piling up for host nation in the European Athletics Championships in the Stadio Olimpico in Rome; such that even some of my hard-bitten Italian colleagues are getting bewildered. ‘It never used to be like this,’ said one 60-something correspondent, shaking his head after another gold and silver in the men’s half-marathon (plus…
FORZA ITALIA
The host nation came into these European Athletics Championships in Rome with expectations of doing well, if not topping the medal table; and stirring home victories in the opening and closing finals of the first day, the women’s 20k Walk and 5000 metres justified those hopes; it’s just a shame that there were not more…
MUCH ADO…
It is 70 years today (May 6) since the then Roger Bannister (pre-doctorate, pre-knighthood) ran the first sub-four minute Mile. No less a publication than Sports Illustrated, when it was a superlative magazine rather than the current pale shadow, later decided that this was the Greatest Sporting Feat of the Twentieth Century. BBCTV followed suit.…
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BRANDED!
Back in the days when the only people who wore running shoes were runners, they were made of leather and you needed to break them in like any other leather shoes, ie wear them around the house for 20-30mins a day for a week before you’d chance running in them. If not, the likelihood is…
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FAREWELL, SIR HENRY!
Ron Clarke always maintained that Olympic gold medals did not determine a running career. Unkind souls might venture that Clarke’s judgment was coloured by the fact that he never won one. But 17 world records during a globe-trotting career, wowing crowds around the world with his uncompromising front-running declares otherwise; as did the achievements of…
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