As a child, Peter Bolotnikov could hardly have imagined that someday he would become an Olympic champion and world record holder. The future athlete was born in 1930 in the Mordovian village. The boy lost his mother early, and then the Great Patriotic took away his father and older brother. After this, Bolotnikov moved to his aunt and began to work as a shepherd, who did not care about any sport.
But once in his life there was an interesting incident that could be considered a sign from above. One winter, Bolotnikov drove on a sleigh to the city of a familiar sailor. Suddenly, in the middle of the road, he jumped into the snow, ordered the young man to speed up the horses, and he ran after the sleigh - he wanted to warm himself in this frosty cold. The sailor ran for a very long time and, to the bottom of his heart, struck Bolotnikov, who had never seen such a fortitude in a man. The young shepherd took an example from his companion and began to run from home to the stable every day - even if only a kilometer, but that was his first step in the career of an athlete.
At 16, Bolotnikov moved to Moscow and entered the school. In the capital, he began to skate, ride a bicycle and do gymnastics. In the future, he impressed fellow runners with the ability to pull himself fifty times, but he himself did not think about the career of a pure athlete. Everything has changed in the army. At the age of 20, Bolotnikov was drafted into a group of Soviet troops in Germany, where there were no conditions for playing sports - just by running.
One day an over-conscript soldier approached him who had made war. He ordered the young man to hand over for him the standard in running, necessary for dismissal in the reserve. The young private did not dare to refuse. In tarpaulin boots, he won the three-kilometer cross and then finally decided to do athletics professionally. Nowadays, athletes at the age of 20 can already win the European and World Championships, and Bolotnikov has just begun his journey in sports.
Soon, the new athlete appeared first medal in the competition of the armed forces, which was considered a very honorable achievement. Many outstanding athletes of those years passed through the army, including the greatest of them - two-time Olympic champion Vladimir Kuts. Three years after the appeal, Bolotnikov was transferred to Moscow, where he first went to CSKA stadium to the famous coach Pyotr Stepanov. The athlete left the army only in 1955.
In 1956, Bolotnikov successfully performed at the first Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR and earned a trip to the Olympic Games in Melbourne, where he took ninth place in the 5000 meters race and 16th in the race for 10000 meters. The performance of a beginner by the standards of a sports athlete was found to be satisfactory, and he soon transferred to the coach of the USSR national team Grigory Nikiforov. Bolotnikov recalled that the specialist became his second father. Together, they implemented a revolutionary technique for those times - a combination of endurance training and speed with a constant set of kilometers. At the same time, an important part of the training was physical fitness, which many styers simply neglected. Throughout his life Bolotnikov ran 70 thousand kilometers, and such exhausting workouts led quickly to the result.
Already in 1957, Bolotnikov won an important symbolic victory. At the USSR Championship, he overtook Kuts himself in the 10,000-meter race, who returned from Melbourne with two gold medals. Bolotnikov kept the entire distance behind the legendary athlete, who was used to the fact that any opponent simply begins to fall from the finish with fatigue. But Bolotnikov withstood the pace of Kutz, and at the finish he won 0.2 seconds from him. Kutz, who did not like to lose to death, immediately congratulated the younger rival on his victory.
Due to an injury, Bolotnikov was not very active in 1958, but the next season he became one of the world leaders in stayer running when he won nine consecutive tournaments - today such a series in 5000 and 10000 meter runs is impossible to imagine. At the Olympic Games in Rome, the 30-year-old athlete rode one of the favorites, but far from the only one.
September 8, 1960, when the Olympic medals were played in the 10,000-meter race, the 40-degree heat was at the Stadio Olimpico. Together with Bolotnikov, two teammates - Alexei Desyatchikov, who won the USSR – USA match a year ago under similar weather conditions, and Yevgeny Zhukov went to the start. The last two were given the task at all costs to work for Bolotnikov and ensure his victory, despite the fact that the leader of the national team did not know about it.
From the first meters, Zhukov took the lead, but already in the second round Bolotnikov decided to lead the race himself. The athlete’s impulse did not last long, after a quarter of the distance he let in the main group of rivals in which anyone was there - the Olympic champion of Rome on the “five” Murray Halberg from New Zealand, and the silver medalist of the same race Hans Grodocki from Germany, and current European champion Zdzislaw Krzyszkowiak from Poland, and former world record holder Sandor Iharos from Hungary, and Commonwealth Games champion David Power from Australia.
Together, they ran a few more laps, but at a rather slow pace, trying to maintain strength at the finish line. For Bolotnikov it was a kind of respite, which allowed ten laps to go to the gap. Now he was supported only by the Decors, Grodock and Powers. Dozens of tenders, remembering the order, urged Bolotnikov, who no longer thought of the third jerk. But it was necessary to complete it - before the last lap Grodotsky was still walking in the first place. Bolotnikov accelerated at the final 300 meters and came to the finish line first, showing a time of 28: 32.2 - only 1.8 seconds slower than Kuts's world record! For the second time in a row, the Soviet athlete won the 10,000-meter Olympic race. Until now, this victory is the last for domestic athletics at a distance of over 800 meters in men.
After 37 days, Bolotnikov broke the world record. He ran the distance in 28: 18.8 - in a month and a half he cut off 39.6 seconds from his personal achievement. Another breakthrough year for Bolotnikov was the 1962th. He won the European Championships at a distance of 10,000 meters, became the bronze medalist in the 5,000 meters race and renewed the world top ten record again. Until December 1963, when the Australian Ron Clark became the champion, the main reference point for the stayers on the track was 28: 18.2.
After this, Bolotnikov’s career entered the final stage. He still had the strength and capabilities to defend the title of Olympic champion at the Games in Tokyo. However, shortly before the start, Bolotnikov received an injury during the warm-up. He still went the distance, for some time he ran in the top three, but in the end he finished only 25th.
Such an unfortunate failure usually meant the end of a career - there were already not one or two generations of applicants for a place in the national team behind the 34-year-old athlete. But Bolotnikov refused to leave the defeated sports. He was given the last chance to prove himself at a match between the USSR and the USA. The main rival in the 5000 meter race was then the current Olympic champion Bob Schul, a month before that set the record for America in the 3-mile race.
The task to get around him was extremely difficult for Bolotnikov, but he was able to outwit the American runner due to the unexpected acceleration, about which Shul first thought that it was someone who was squirming aside to take a run. The American overtook Bolotnikov in front of the finish line, and together they ran the final 110 meters. At the last moment, the Soviet athlete was able to break ahead by a few centimeters and finished first. Bolotnikov’s success allowed the USSR men's team to defeat the United States for the first time on points.
- Peter Bolotnikov and his coach Grigory Nikiforov
- © Ugrinovich
After completing his career, Bolotnikov worked for 20 years at Spartak as a senior athletics coach, until in 1985 he left for Algeria to work with local athletes. It was not easy to settle in a new place - during the hours of rest Bolotnikov liked to get out of the house with his wife, which caused great discontent among Algerians. As he himself recalled, once a group of young people even tried to drop his car into a cliff because of this. But still, Bolotnikov spent four long years in the country, managed to learn French and raised many athletes. In 1989, he returned home and briefly led the Spartak Society.
Bolotnikov died on December 20, 2013 at the age of 83. In the last years of his life, he was worried about the state of athletics in the country. The Olympic champion admitted that the Russians will no longer be competitors to Ethiopia and Kenya in his favorite stayer run. However, he wondered why his world record, which had already passed half a century, is still so rarely surpassed by living compatriots.