Emil Zátopek had won the 10,000 metres three days before. There were now half-a dozen Scandinavians hopeful of re-living the glories of Nurmi. A “Flying Dutchman” was lining up, having already also qualified for the 1500 metres final. One of his neighbouring Belgians was even faster at that shorter distance. A second Belgian, an American, a Norwegian might surprise everyone, however unlikely it seemed. The Olympic 5000 metres final of 1948 had every promise of being a dramatic event, and it duly lived up to all expectations.

The closing stages were described vividly by Allison (“Al”) Danzig, the long established correspondent for “The New York Times”. He wrote, “By the thin margin of two-tenths of a second Zátopek failed in his effort to score the first Olympic double at these distances since 1912. The 26-year-old Czech army lieutenant gave the sell-out 83,000 crowd another tremendous thrill as he came from far back with three-quarters of a lap to go to pass Willi Slijkhuis, of Holland, in 2^nd place and then cut down rapidly on the small bald-headed Reiff. With his every stride Zátopek drew nearer and nearer the slowing Reiff. The huge crowd stood throughout this terrific sprint and cheered on the young Czech. Had the race gone another five yards he probably would have made it. As it was, he had misjudged the pace by a hair and finished a step behind the Belgian”. Times – 14:17.6, 14:17.8, and in 3^rd place and a long way behind, 14:26.8, was the “Flying Dutchman”, Willy (“Wim”) Slijkhuis, his wings clipped, at least for that day.

A story that was not made widely public until 1950 by August van Schoore, editor of the Brussels “Les Sports” magazine, was that Gaston Reiff had been severely bruised and cut a few weeks before the Games when a car backed into him and others in a Brussels tram queue. “One of the leg injuries showed signs of recurrence during his heat of the 5000 metres at Wembley”, wrote van Schoore in an article for the UK magazine, “World Sports”, “and right up to the morning of the final he was not sure whether he would be able to run. He had a try out on the morning of the race, and only after he had come through it successfully did he become a certain starter”. The sports media in those days were far less inclined to make much of what journalists galore in later years would see as an irresistible “human interest” story and promote it in headline-emblazoned terms.

Much more aware of the appeal of such incidental drama, “World Sports” included in its “Round the World” reports from special correspondents a cheery tale from the Belgian contributor: “The whole country rose to Reiff’s rather unexpected success, the evening papers publishing special editions, and the radio pouring out thousands of words. When he returned, his little home town of Braine-l’Alleude feted him – together with another winner less well known abroad. When 7000 carrier pigeons were released in Wembley Stadium at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games a London-to-Belgium pigeon race had been organised. A pigeon from Braine-l’Alleud won ! In the festivities for Reiff the pigeon was not forgotten”.

The photograph of the agonisingly close finish of that 5000 metres is one of the iconic images of the Wembley Olympics – Reiff’s head turned in alarm and his expression desperate as Zátopek’s shadow looms over him. Zátopek, of course, went on to become one of the greatest ever distance runners – many who know about these things would say “the greatest”. Gaston Reiff’s place in athletics history is rather more difficult to define, and though it might seem churlish to say so even an Olympic gold medal and three particularly exceptional World records do not necessarily provide proof of a competitive career completely fulfilled. Reiff’s three World records are worth setting in their historical context, as follows, showing the previous and subsequent records:

2000 metres – 5:06.9 Brussels, 29 September 1948. Previously, 5:11.8 Gunder Hägg (Sweden) 1942. Subsequently, 5:02.2 István Rόzsavölgyi (Hungary) 1955. Reiff’s time officially ratified as 5:07.0

3000 metres – 7:58.7 Gävle, Sweden, 12 August 1949. Previously, 8:01.2 Hägg 1942. Subsequently, 7:55.6 Sándor Iharos (Hungary) 1955. Reiff’s time officially ratified as 7:58.8.

2 miles – 8:40.4 Paris, 26 August 1952. Previously, 8:42.8 Hägg 1944. Subsequently, 8:33.4 Iharos 1955.

Reiff apparently believed after his 2000 metres record that he could have run 5:02 had the schedule had been set accordingly for his pacemakers. Finishing far behind Reiff was Marcel Hansenne, the Olympic 800 metres bronze-medallist that year who earned his living legitimately as a reporter for “L’Equipe” daily sports newspaper in Paris, and he reckoned that Reiff was capable of cutting the record to 7:55. Gunder Hägg was an honoured guest at Reiff’s 3000 metres and told Reiff afterwards that he could beat all the other records still standing to the Swedish legend’s credit, which amounted to a 4:01.3 mile, 8:42.8 two miles,13:32.4 three miles and 13:58.2 5000 metres. 

As can be seen from the list of Reiff’s records, in every instance he provided the link between Hägg’s record-breaking frenzy of wartime years and the equally prolific Hungarians of the mid-1950s, which in itself deserves permanent recognition in any of the athletics annals. Significantly, though, all Reiff’s records were set at non-Olympic events, and by the end of 1952 he was no more than 10^th fastest ever for his gold-medal distance of 5000 metres at 14:10.8, with Hägg followed in the rankings by Zátopek at 14:03.0. Reiff also ran 3:45.2 for 1500 metres and 4:02.8 for the mile in 1952, and the 1500 metres time was the same as that which had gained the silver medal in the Olympics that year. So the obvious conclusion that Reiff had the misfortune to be at his best at intermediate distances might be a hazardous one to make. He had failed miserably in defence of his Olympic 5000 metres title in 1952, not finishing, and had twice deceived at the European Championships. On the credit side, Reiff had boldly accepted Zátopek’s challenge to a return match at 5000 metres in Prague a month after the Olympic final and had won convincingly, 14:19.0 to 14:21.2. 

In the November 1952 issue of the highly authoritative UK monthly magazine, “Athletics World”, co-editor Ross McWhirter had wittily summed up Reiff’s enigmatic status after that year’s Olympics: “Some Helsinki critics had Reiff interred in a communal grave with other disappointing performers, but they forgot that in athletics nothing succeeds like failure and that every shroud has a golden lining. Reiff is in danger of being written down in track history as the man who blew up in the 1946 and 1950 European Championships, the man who scraped home at Wembley, and who dropped out four years later. The key to understanding Reiff is that for him the 5000 metres at world class pace is a gamble which can only come off once in a while, and the 1500 metres is an event in which he is turned into a convenience by the rest of the field. The fact remains that at 2000, 3000 and 4000 metres no man on Earth has run faster”. The author’s odd mention of 4000 metres may have referred to an under-reported wartime deed by Reiff. 

In the same article Ross McWhirter also gave thought to Reiff’s candidature to be the first sub-four-minute miler. The man who would eventually grasp the holy grail of middle-distance running in 1954 was, of course, Roger Bannister, of Great Britain, whose mile best was as yet 4:07.8. The two others who would present themselves as dedicated contenders in the next 18 months had not done anything yet noteworthy, though one of them, John Landy, of Australia, would run 4:02.1 within a month of  the “Athletics World” issue appearing. McWhirter wrote, “The big question is ‘Has Reiff the qualities of the four-minute miler ?’ His relentlessly fast pace as he lapped his way to his three World records  removes all doubt to his lasting powers, but what of his speed ? His best 800 metres is 1:53.5. There are perhaps six men in the World who are interested in the four minute mile – really interested. They are Numbers 1 to 4 in the Helsinki 1500 metres, with Gunnar Nielsen, of Denmark, and Reiff. Of these the one who has the solidest record is Reiff”. By that date Reiff’s 4:02.8 was the fastest mile of the chosen six.

A table followed the article, listing the best 800 metres times for the 19 runners who had ever broken 4:05 for the mile, or the equivalent 3:46.0 or better for 1500 metres, and the quickest among the “interested” half-dozen was Nielsen, 1:49.7, followed by Bob McMillen, (USA), 1:50.0; Bannister, 1:50.7;  Josy Barthel (Luxemburg), 1:51.0; and Werner Lueg, of Germany, 1:51.4. Barthel, McMillen, Lueg and Bannister had been the first four in the Olympic 1500, and all of them were much faster than Reiff at 800 metres. Ross McWhirter could not possibly have foreseen at the time of writing that Wes Santee, of the USA, ranked 12^th in 1952 at 4:08.8, aged only 20, would become the third front-runner, with 4:02.4 in 1953, as Bannister and Landy both ran 4:02.0. McMillen did nothing of note that post-Olympic year, Reiff ran 4:05.7, Lueg 4:06.6, Barthel 4:07.5 indoors early in 1954, Nielsen 4:12.2. Lueg, understandably metric-minded, was to tell the German athletics writer, Manfred Holzhausen, some 60 years later that during his competitive career he never gave a thought to the idea of running a mile in under four minutes. 

Reiff, whose full first names were “Gaston Etienne Ghislain”, was born on 24 February 1921 in Braine-l’Alleud, near the battlefield of Waterloo where Napoleon had been defeated, and it was in wartime, too, that Reiff made a competitive debut of substance in the most bizarre circumstances. One of the first major athletics events to be cancelled because of the outbreak of World War II was the International Cross Country Championships early in 1940, but the French athletics authorities took it upon themselves to organise a junior championship instead in Paris, to which teams from Belgium and England were invited. The race, held in March, was won by a future UK record-holder for six miles and 10,000 metres, Frank Aaron, and Reiff was an undistinguished 14^th. 

Joe Binks, a veteran Sunday newspaper athletics correspondent and former mile record-holder, accompanied the England team and reported that their ferry across the English Channel was escorted by a Royal Navy destroyer. Two months after the race the German army invaded France and Paris was occupied, but even following Belgium’s surrender Reiff was able to compete as he wished in Belgium and France, and Auguste van Schoore recalled, “In 1943 Reiff began to reveal his real quality. He became Belgian senior cross-country champion, and at a meeting in Lyons he beat the French champion, Pujazon. He followed this up by lowering the Belgian 5000 metres record to 14min 46sec. In August he achieved a performance that stamped him as World-class, covering 2000 metres in Brussels in 5min 15.8sec. Only Gunder Hägg had run the distance faster up to that time”. To be strictly accurate, it was against Raphael Pujazon that Reiff set his record of 14:45.9. Hägg had run a 5:11.7 for 2000 metres in 1942, ratified as per the rules at a rounded-off 5:11.8.

Belgium’s leading middle distance runner of the 1930s had been Joseph Mostert, who set a World’s best time for ¾-of-a-mile of 3:00.4 in 1937 and was 2^nd to Sydney Wooderson in the next year’s European Championships 1500 metres. The best of the Belgians at longer distances was Jean Chapelle, who had a capable 10,000 metres best of 31:34.2 in 1937, ranking 15^th in the World, and made two visits to London in 1939 to win the Amateur Athletic Association 10 miles (51:56.0) and the two miles steeplechase. His best performances, though, were  in cross-country. He competed in the International Championships on seven consecutive occasions, interrupted by World War II, and had 2^nd places in 1938 and 1947.

In 1946, after a personal best 5000 metres 14:26.1 for Belgium v France in Brussels in July, Reiff moved on to the European Championships in Oslo and first demonstrated what Ross McWhirter was to call picturesquely his “once in a while” fallibility at the 5000 metres distance. “Gaston was guilty of the worst tactical error he has ever made”, van Schoore was to write. “In that race he decided early on to take the lead from Heino. He did so, but the effort took so much out of him that when Slijkhuis and Wooderson tackled him 800 metres from the finish he could not answer their challenge. Wooderson went on to win one of his finest races, and Reiff learned a lesson that he has never forgotten”. Sydney Wooderson, of Great Britain, won in 14:08.8, having also been 1500 metres champion in 1938. Willy Slijkhuis was 2^nd, Sweden’s Evert Nyberg 3^rd, Finland’s Viljo Heino 4^th, Zátopek in his first championships 5^th, and Reiff right out of the reckoning, 6^th in 14:45.8. Yet only a week later, in Stockholm, Reiff gave Slijkhuis fair competition at 1500 metres, losing 3:50.4 to 3:51.6, and then in October, back in Brussels, ran 8:08.8 for 3000 metres totally unchallenged and inferior only to Hägg’s 1942 World record 8:01.2. Coincidentally, Slijkhuis had also run 8:08.8 in Bergen in the week between the European 5000 and his 1500 win over Reiff. 

The doyen of athletics historians, Roberto Quercetani, wrote charmingly about the Oslo 5000 metres in his “A World History of Long Distance Running”, published in 2002: “I have a warm personal recollection of the Zátopek vs. Reiff summit in Brussels in 1950. I reached Heysel Stadium in a tram-car crowded with Belgian fans who were mainly engaged in discussing the forthcoming event. From what I heard, it was obvious just about everybody saw Gaston as a ‘sure-fire’ bet. The magic power of patriotism ! In the stadium, filled to capacity, Reiff was loudly cheered from his first appearance on the track up to the tragic moment when he suddenly lost contact with his Czech rival. As the gap became wider and wider it looked as if even the huge crowd had lost contact with the race. But a bunch of seconds later the sad silence was followed by a burst of cheers to salute Zátopek’s fantastic performance. I was witnessing the European Championships for the first time and such an experience made me appreciate the magic power of sportsmanship as well”. 

Even though Reiff, 5ft 8in (1.73m) tall and weighing 9st 8lb (61kg), had won a national senior cross-country title in wartime, he paid little attention to such harrier competition thereafter, which is surprising because Belgium had been a faithful supporter of the International Championships since 1923 and eventually had their first individual and team wins at Reading in 1948, with John Doms 1^st home, and also had the individual winner in 1950, Lucien Theys. Reiff’s coach, Marc Alavoine, had placed 8^th in the 1923 event, but when Reiff made his only appearance in 1947 he abandoned the race early on. On a rare other occasion in Rouen in 1949 when he ventured out into the countryside he beat Alain Mimoun, the International champion and Olympic 10,000 metres silver medallist. Reiff’s winter preference that year was to go to the USA to race indoors and he ran 8:53.8 for two miles at Madison Square Garden, which bore very fair comparison with the fastest indoors of the USA’s Greg Rice, 8:51.0 in 1943. Willy Slijkhuis was also in the USA but racing at the mile distance instead. A meeting between the two would have been an obvious attraction, but organisers in Boston would not pay Slijkhuis’s expenses for one of his miling appearances, which makes one wonder what he was asking for. Reiff finished his indoor adventure by winning the AAU indoor three miles in 14:08.1, though well outside Greg Rice’s 1941 best of 13:51.0, while Slijkhuis won the mile.

Later in the year, on Reiff’s Union St Gilloise club track under floodlights (a rare happening in those days), he ran 8:05.0 for 3000 metres, winning by almost a quarter-of-a-minute, which was now the clear second fastest ever, and presumably gave him the idea that he could do better – as he would with his 7:58.7 a couple of months afterwards. He maintained that form into 1950 and had winning times of 4:06.2 for the mile in Paris in May and 3:46.6 for 1500 metres in Malmö, which would remain the fastest in the World throughout the year. He followed up with 8:09.6 for 3000 metres in Brussels in August, which would also stay as the World leader, but the 5000 metres at the European Championships in Brussels later that month was again a disagreeable experience.

The weighty volume relating the history of the European Championships, published in 2010, described the 5000 metres as the main attraction of the Championships, bringing together Emil Zátopek and the local idol, Reiff, but the authors added, “The presence of the Belgian was in doubt right up to the last minute as he suffered from lumbago”. Reiff had an easy enough heat as six of the seven competitors qualified, and in the final he was joined by Zátopek, who had already won the 10,000 metres, as at the Olympics two years previously, together with Alain Mimoun, who had been 2^nd in both those races. Of the other 5000 finalists two each were from Finland, Sweden and Yugoslavia, and the remainder another Belgian (Lucien Theys), a Briton and a Frenchman. “Reiff split up the group going through the two-kilometre mark, and the two favourites broke away from the rest”, was how the Spanish authors of the history’s text, Angel Cruz and Eric Pla, described the first part of the race. “Both took it in turns to lead until at the bell Zátopek kicked and the Belgian couldn’t go with him. The Czech clocked 14:03.0, the best time after Hägg’s record. The shattered Reiff was brushed aside on the line by the tenacious Mimoun”. The 14:26.0 and 14:26.2 clockings for Mimoun and Reiff showed just how effective was Zátopek’s finishing drive. 

Reiff again led World rankings in 1951 with 8:50.0 for two miles, which was another performance only headed in the all-time list by Hägg’s 8:42.8, and 13:51.1 for three miles, both achieved on visits to Sweden. Reiff also led the list at 5000 metres (14:10.8) and was 8^th at 1500 metres (3:49.0) and 9^th at 10,000 metres (30:18.8). Even so, he was by no means regarded as the favourite for the next year’s Olympic 5000 metres in Helsinki, and not even as an obvious medal choice. The “Athletics World” co-editors, Norris and twin brother Ross, invited the four leading athletics statisticians of the age – Donald Potts (USA), Roberto Quercetani (Italy), Fulvio Regli (Switzerland), Ekkehard zur Megede (Germany) – to join them in nominating their medal selections, and all five (the McWhirters in twinned collaboration) named Zátopek and Germany’s Herbert Schade, but only two (Potts and Quercetani) opted for Reiff. Others who got a mention were Chris Chataway and Gordon Pirie for Great Britain, Alain Mimoun for France and Nikifor Popov for the USSR.

Zátopek won in 14:06.6 from Mimoun, Schade, Pirie and Chataway, which was all credit to the expert prognosticators. Popov didn’t qualify for the final – but then neither did prospective sub-four-minute mile aspirants John Landy and Wes Santee, among others ! Reiff was close up to the leaders at 3000 metres but stepped off the track a kilometre later. Yet only eight days on, in Gävle, in Sweden, where he had set his 3000 metres record in 1949, he had a brilliant mile win over the leading Swedes in 4:03.4, and then on 20 August when Barthel won a 1500 metres on home ground in Luxemburg in 3:44.6, which placed him 7^th on the all-time list, McMillen and Reiff  both ran 3:45.2. It was a national record for Reiff, and in the process he betrayed not an inkling of tactical naivety or nervousness, audaciously leading from 800 metres until the back straight of the final lap. Did he perhaps wonder that he might have chosen the wrong event at the Olympics ? Only six days later he could have been musing that, in truth, there now wasn’t any Olympic event to best suit his particular talents. 

Roberto Quercetani’s “European Report” for the “Athletics World” magazine told the story with the author’s usual attention to precise detail. “Gaston Reiff had his widely publicised attempt on Hägg’s two miles record on Paris’s Jean-Bouin track on Tuesday August 26. The Belgian, who could only manage 8:50.0 in a duel with Wim Slijkhuis in Stockholm last year, this time had no opponents likely to disturb hm, and so he followed his time schedule most diligently. His intermediate times were as follows – 1000 metres 2:41.8, 2000 metres 5:28.0, 3000 metres 8:08.6, last 218.69 metres in 31.8. The first mile was negotiated in 4:21.2, the second in 4:19.2. The new World record of 8:40.4 represents an improvement of 2.4 secs on Hägg’s 1944 mark and is believed to be almost as good as – or lightly inferior to – Reiff’s own 3000 metres record of 7:58.8, set in 1949. Raymond Mahaut, of France, finished 2^nd in 9:07.6 for a new national record”. 

In June of 1953 Reiff courageously accepted some serious challenges in the lion’s den, so to speak, as he had with Zátopek after the 1948 Olympics. though the outcome suggests that Reiff probably wasn’t quite ready for the task. On 25 May he was at London’s hallowed White City Stadium for a two miles against Chris Chataway, who held the British record at 8:55.6 from a year previously, and Gordon Pirie, record-holder for three and six miles. Lagging by 25 yards with two laps to go, Reiff “hurled in”, to coin an odd phrase that the McWhirters were fond of using in “Athletics World”, leaving Chataway and Pirie in remote control. Chataway won in 8:49.6, 3^rd ranked ever to Hägg and Reiff. Next Reiff took the air-flight to Los Angeles, which  occupied much of a day, to compete in the Compton Invitational Mile on 5 June against Wes Santee, who had done 4:06.3 the month before, still aged 21, and whose name was already being bandied about by excited US track writers as the man to run sub-four. Santee rushed through the last half-mile in 1:57.2, which was much too fast for Denis Johansson, of Finland, 4:04.0, and Reiff, 4:05.7. On an historical note, Johansson’s time was a Finnish record.

Even in home territory Reiff might have had cause at the age of 32 to suspect that time was – literally – catching up with him. On 20 June in Stuttgart he was well beaten at 3000 metres by a fellow-countryman, Frans Herman, who was six years his junior, in another 3^rd fastest ever, 8:06.6. The McWhirters had remarked in their report of Chataway’s win, “No doubt in two months time the Belgian ace will again show just how great he can be”, but for once they were proved wrong. After losing again at 3000 metres to Herman in Oslo, 8:10.6 to 8:12.0, on 8 July Reiff’s season seemed to peter out, and an ankle injury might have been to blame. 

Ominously, at Reiff’s Olympic-winning distance times were getting ever faster. Already in June of 1953 Aleksandr Anufriyev, of the USSR, who had been 10^th in the Olympic final, caused a real stir by running 13:58.8. Then on 5 August in Bucharest Zátopek only just beat a little known Soviet Union runner,Vladimir Kuts, 14:03.0 to 14:04.0. On 27 August Kuts was even more lively in Moscow, 14:02.0. Two days later in Berlin Gordon Pirie broke the British record, 14:02.6. On 20 September in Budapest Jόzsef Kovács, of Hungary, ran 14:01.2. Reiff’s best of 14:10.8 was beginning to look  distinctly outmoded. 

From then on Gaston Reiff’s competitive career gradually drew to an end at a modest level – 3:53.2 and 14:24.4 in 1954; 14:25.6 in 1955, and ranked 56^th internationally  as  Sandor Iharos set a World record of 13:40.2. Reiff’s own records were each in turn spectacularly removed that year by Iharos, with 7:55.6 for 3000 metres and 8:33.4 for two miles in May, and by his fellow-Hungarian, István Rόzsavölgyi, with 2000 metres in 5:02.2 in October. Then, too, there was a new track champion for Belgians to admire as Roger Moens became the first man to break 1 minute 46 secnds for 800 metres, and he would be followed by Gaston Roelants, the 56^th-ranked steeplechaser in 1959 but Olympic champion five year later.

The Belgian sports editor, August van Schoore, had meanwhile painted a picture of domestic bliss; Reiff living with his wife and young children, Claude and Claudine, in a small cottage on the outskirts of the village of his birth and employed by a weekly sports newspaper. “His mode of life is as simple and calm as the man himself. Being a national hero has not altered him at all. He does his work, trains steadily (diet, lots of milk, fruit and vegetables, very little meat) and lives his family life without seeming to find in any or all of it any cause for alarm or despondency”.

G.E.G. Reiff died on 6 May 1992, aged 71.