Steve Smythe catches up with an iconic distance runner who made a massive impact on the marathon scene half a century ago winning European and Commonwealth titles
Nowadays, the world’s top marathoners are mostly Kenyans and Ethiopians. Despite the huge and encouraging breakthrough for Emile Cairess and Mahamed Mahamed in finishing in the top four at the London Marathon this year, Britain’s two fastest runners do not rank in the world’s top 100 men over the past 12 months as the African nations dominate.
Go back half a century though and it was Britons who often led the way numerically. For example in the men’s 1500m to marathon Commonwealth top 10s of 1972 – Britain had a total of 29 athletes ranked to Kenya’s nine. Certainly the world’s top individual marathoner of 1974 when it came to the year’s world rankings (on merit and time) was the young and exciting Brit Ian Thompson.
His effective rag to riches story was unparalleled among top-level British runners as he went from an unknown to being voted runner-up in the 1974 British Sports Writers Sportsman of the Year awards behind boxing world champion John Conteh and he won the British Athletics Writers award for 1974 ahead of BBC Sports Personality of the Year Brendan Foster.
Thompson finished the year with a stunning European title in Rome but it’s still highly relevant how the 24-year-old trainee teacher, without a coach, got to that point.
His first marathon was at the end of 1973 when he shockingly won the AAA title and England Commonwealth Games trials at Harlow. His time was the world’s fastest ever debut of 2:12:40 as he easily defeated a incredible quality field including reigning Commonwealth champion and Britain’s greatest ever marathoner Ron Hill (2:13:22) and European fourth-placer Colin Kirkham (2:15:25).
Thompson had never raced over 10 miles before on the road and was persuaded to go there to help his team Luton and he wasn’t among the 40-odd names that AW Editor Mel Watman highlighted in his extensive preview.
Although Thompson was unknown he was clearly a major talent just waiting to find his event.
Born in Birkinhead in Cheshire, his first memory of running was not that positive while he was growing up in Canada. He was running past some tied dogs and thought he was safe but unknown to him the dogs were on a very long lead and nearly caught him and he ended up falling in a ditch and had to be rescued by a Mounted Policeman.
“We moved from Canada when my…
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