his career began at an elementary school in zlin. there he ran at school events with good results. he accepted an invitation to train with zlin´s athletes. he mostly trained by himself with his own running system. he ran sections with multiple repetitions. in 1943 he tried his first 5,000 metres run and the year after that he set his first record at 2,000 metres track. his most successful event were summer olympic games in 1952 where he won 3 gold medals. after that he went through an operation for a hernia. zátopek´s athlete career ended in 1958 then he worked as a minister (christianity).