After his victory in the 5,000m at the 1974 European championships in
Rome, Brendan Foster returned to Britain a national hero, and amongst
other honours, he was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
It seemed that everyone wanted Foster for their own promotional
purposes, and he soon found that an endless string of social events was
affecting his training. Foster soon rectified this situation, and
although his early performances in 1975 were below his expectations, he
bounced back to win the 5000m at the European Cup semi-final in July,
and also at the European Cup final in Nice on 17 August.
Twelve days
later, at Crystal Palace, Brendan made his debut over 10,000m, an event
he intended to contest at the following year's Olympic Games. Foster
let others lead in the early stages, and although he was soon caught
after an unsuccessful attempt to break away from the field on the 21st
lap, he sprinted off the final bend to win in 27min 45.4sec. It was the
fastest 10,000m time ever on debut, and placed Foster seventh on the
all-time world list. In the 10,000m final at the following year's
Olympic Games in Montreal, the pace was taken over in the middle stages
by Carlos Lopes (Portugal), who gradually dropped the whole field by
7,000m except for Foster and defending champion Lasse Viren (Finland).
Brendan eventually lost contact with the other two, but he still
maintained a sufficient lead over the rest of the field to eventually
win the bronze medal. Foster set an Olympic record of 13min 20.34sec in
the heats of the 5,000m, and in final he finished a close fifth less
than two seconds behind the winner. After the Olympics, Foster won a
number of other races, including the 5,000m at the AAA Championships (see photo above) on August 14. (Ron Casey)
Despite his many successes in the international arena as
a distance runner, Brendan Foster always maintained a fierce allegiance to his
local club, the Gateshead Harriers. When
club members asked Foster to help them win the 1977 national cross country team
championships, he readily agreed, and not only helped Gateshead win the team
title, but also won the individual title from a field of nearly 1,500
runners. During the track season, Foster
won the 10,000m at the AAA championships on July 22, but sustained an injury to
his Achilles tendon in the process. The
injury gradually healed, and Foster came back at the end of the season to win a
10,000m race at Crystal Palace in a personal best time of 27min 36.62sec which
moved him to third on the all-time world list.
He improved on this time at the following year's AAA championships on 23
June, which involved a confusing situation with the timing
equipment, reminiscent of Brendan's experience during his 2 miles world record
in 1973. Foster was missed by the
photo-timing device as he crossed the line, but from the time recorded for a
lapped runner just ahead of him and television footage, Foster's winning time
was estimated as 27min 30.3sec, which was accepted as a new European record (See photo above). In the Commonwealth Games at Edmonton in
August, Foster won the gold medal in the 10,000m, and followed this with a
bronze medal in the 5,000m.
Less than
three weeks later, at the European Championships in Prague, Foster competed in
the fastest 10,000m race in history up to that time. Brendan ran the eighth fastest time ever
recorded of 27min 32.65sec, but could only manage fourth place!! Foster's final season of competitive
athletics was in 1980, during which he finished 11th in the 10,000m at the
Olympic Games in Moscow. (Ron Casey)
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