33 Facts About Basil Heatley

Benjamin Basil Heatley was a British competitive long-distance runner, who was an Olympic marathon silver medallist and former world marathon record-holder.

Basil Heatley competed in the International Cross Country Championships seven times between 1957 and 1964, winning the world title in 1961.

Basil Heatley grew up on a farm near Coventry, Warwickshire, England.

Basil Heatley developed an interest in running in his early teens.

Basil Heatley started reading athletics magazines and bought a copy of "Athletics and Training", a book written by British Olympic athlete Guy Butler.

Basil Heatley trained on the driveway of the family farm and got extra conditioning from his early years of farm work and cycling eight miles to school and back every day.

Basil Heatley served in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, working with horses and dogs, and came out of the army as a corporal.

Basil Heatley joined Coventry Godiva Harriers at the end of 1950 and was to become a life member of the club.

Basil Heatley won the Midland Cross Country Youth title in 1951, and finished third in the English National Youth Cross Country Championship.

Basil Heatley won another bronze medal in the National Juniors cross country race in 1952.

Basil Heatley then won the Midland Cross Country Junior title in both 1954 and 1955, and the Midland Cross Country Senior title five times.

Basil Heatley first started marathon running in 1956 and won the Midlands Championships the same year, completing the distance in 2:36:55.

Basil Heatley successfully defended his title at the 1957 Midlands Championships, improving on his previous time with 2:23:01.

Basil Heatley then decided to take a break from marathon running, preferring to concentrate on his cross country career, and he would not revisit the marathon until a number of years later.

Basil Heatley was one of the top scorers for the England Cross Country team between 1957 and 1964, competing every year at the English National Cross Country Championships.

Basil Heatley successfully defended his title the following year at Parliament Hill Fields, and completed his national hat-trick in 1963 with his third win at Cambridge.

Basil Heatley finished in the top ten at the National Cross on six other occasions, only once finishing in the low teens due to an injury that had been affecting his form over that particular season.

Basil Heatley represented Warwickshire at the Inter Counties Cross Country Championships during this period, winning the title in 1959 and taking second place in 1960.

Basil Heatley was a seven-time participant in the International Cross Country Championships.

Basil Heatley finished 9th in 1958, and took 4th place in both 1959 and 1960.

Basil Heatley finally became cross country world champion at the 1961 International Cross in Nantes, France, winning with an impressive margin of 23 seconds.

In 1962, having taken an extended break from marathon running, Basil Heatley came to the conclusion that his best hope of winning an Olympic medal before his retirement was to focus his efforts on the marathon event at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Basil Heatley confessed that he was not keen on the marathon, saying it was "just a bit too far" for him; he preferred the shorter distances, particularly the 10-mile run.

Basil Heatley was in 12th position half way through the marathon but, despite suffering from stitch for a large part of the race, he managed to work his way up the field to move into third position behind Japan's Kokichi Tsuburaya.

Basil Heatley sprinted the last 200 metres of the stadium lap in 32.3 seconds, overtaking Tsuburaya just 110 metres before the finish line to take second place.

Basil Heatley had completed the marathon in 2 hours, 16 minutes and 19.2 seconds, winning the Olympic silver medal.

Basil Heatley was the fourth Briton to win silver in the Olympic marathon, and although Charlie Spedding took the bronze medal in Los Angeles twenty years later, no Briton has won a silver medal in the Olympic marathon since Basil Heatley's achievement in 1964.

Basil Heatley retired from international competition after the 1964 Games and then became a British athletics team manager.

Basil Heatley was secretary of the Midland Cross Country Association for a number of years during the 1970s.

Basil Heatley continued to compete in the Third Division of the Birmingham League for several years after his international retirement and remained closely involved with the sport into later life.

In 2015, at the age of 82, Basil Heatley was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame at the Hilton Metropole in Birmingham.

Basil Heatley was presented with his award by former long-distance world record holder David Moorcroft.

Basil Heatley achieved the following personal bests during his running career:.