"Today We Die A Little: The Rise and Fall of Emil Zátopek, Olympic Legend" is an attempt to tell the full, extraordinary story of Emil Zátopek, the Czechoslovak soldier who in the decade following the Second World War revolutionised distance-running – and became an international symbol of decency and courage. He won four Olympic golds (three in the space of eight days – including his first ever attempt at a marathon); set 18 world records; and went undefeated over 10,000 metres for six years. In doing so, he redefined the boundaries of human endurance. His training sessions defied belief, many of them performed in Army boots, in snow, in sand, in darkness – even, some said, with his wife on his back.

His toughness was matched by a spirit of generous friendship that transcended nationality and politics in the darkest days of the Cold War. His warm heart and eccentric joie de vivre charmed the world. He dropped one of his gold medals in a swimming pool; another, famously, he gave away.

During the Prague Spring of 1968, Zátopek was an energetic champion of “socialism with a human face”. When Warsaw Pact tanks moved in to crush Czechoslovakia’s new freedoms, he paid a high price. Expelled from the Army and stripped of his role in sport, he was condemned to years of hard and degrading manual labour, far from his home and his adored wife. By the time he was fully rehabilitated, after two decades and several very public capitulations to the Communist regime, he was a shadow of the man he had been – and the world had all but forgotten him. Based on extensive research in the Czech Republic, interviews with people across the world who knew him, and some enthusiastic support and encouragement from Emil’s widow, fellow Olympian Dana Zátopková, "Today We Die A Little" is an attempt to get beyond the usual myths and anecdotes and discover the real man behind the legend. It also depicts, through the prism of Zátopek’s life (1922-2000), a strange and tragic chapter of European history.

No athlete has spawned so many legends as Zátopek, the man Runner’s World named in 2013 as the greatest runner, over any distance, of all time. Yet his true, complex, occasionally heart-breaking story is if anything even more exhilarating than the generally accepted comic-book version. For all his flaws, he understood and embodied the romance of sport – and was loved by rivals around the world because of this. With so much top-level sport now hopelessly corrupted by the cold, cash-driven, win-at-all-costs mentality, the story of his brave, generous-spirited life is as inspiring and relevant as it has ever been.