English
Español
A British gold medallist from the 1960 Olympics is commemorated annually by a mile-long race.
Don Thompson set an Olympic-record time and beat former gold medallists to win the 50km (31 mile) race walking event in Rome.
Folkestone Running and Athletics Club in Kent, of which Thompson was a former member, commemorates the Olympian with the annual Don Thompson Mile race between Sandgate and Hythe.
Local running commentator Kevin Daly told Secret Kent that "a lot of runners don't know who Don Thompson is even though he was a local man".
"Somebody came up with the idea of doing something to stand the test of time so we could remember him every year," he said. "So the Don Thompson Mile was dreamt up."
At the event, runners race along the promenade in Hythe from one plaque honouring Thompson to another, a mile away.
The race direction is determined by the wind.
Daly described the race walker, who died in 2006, as "a character in his own little way".
"He was an insurance clerk and that is what he looked like," he said.
"He wasn't a superstar, all-muscles-bulging, powerful athlete, he was only 5ft 5in (168cm).
"The Italians took to him and they called him Il Topolino, which loosely translated was 'the little mouse'."
Daly added: "He wasn't one that was looking for headlines and so his name has perhaps been forgotten but this is why we do the Don Thompson Mile once a year."
Thompson started his athletics career with running before he tried race walking.
Competing in Rome after not completing the race four years prior in Melbourne, he beat out Swedish rival and 1956 Olympic champion John Ljunggren.
Daly said that, in the final stages of the race, Thompson "could hear the second cheer of the crowd, he knew John had just come into the stadium so he had to up his game, and sure enough he won that gold".
He had trained by exercising in his bathroom with a paraffin heater, steaming kettles and wearing a heavy tracksuit in an attempt to replicate the "the heat and humidity that he might find in Italy", according to Daly.
Thompson would compete four years later in Tokyo, where he finished 10th.
He continued walking after that, including competing in a 200km (124 mile) race in France aged 58.
"It was amazing the amount of times we turned up at a run miles away and there he was in his Folkstone Running Club kit," said Daly, himself a former club member.
"He wouldn't run it, he'd walk it and beat a lot of runners."
Follow BBC Kent on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.
- Olympic hero Weston welcomed home by proud family
- The Victoria Cross holder who won Olympic gold
- 'My ambulance job puts athletics into perspective'