Viren,Gammoudi,Stewart,Prefontaine:5000m Final,1972 Olympic Games,Munich 

Defending 5000 metres champion ,the great Tunisian runner Mohamed Gammoudi ,at the age of 34,knew this was going to be his final track race ,and,having fallen in the 10K ,forcing him to drop out ,wanted to finish his career with one last gold. Up against him were a new generation of athletes,including the gold and silver medalists from the 10000 metres race earlier in the week,Finland's Lasse Viren(aged 23)and Belgian Emiel Puttemans(25 ),both of whom would lower the 5000 metre WR in the weeks after the Games. Also in the field were Britons Ian Stewart (23 )who had already won European and Commonwealth golds at this distance, future 10K world record holder Dave Bedford(22 ).and American hopeful Steve Prefontaine (21) . Also lining up were the Fin,Juha Vaatainan ,who had blistered his way to a European 5/10 K double just the year before and the German Harald Norpoth ,who'd won silver at this distance in the '64 Olympics .In the end Viren made it all look too easy, out sprinting Gammoudi down the home stretch to take the gold and thus complete the historic 5/10K double,whist Stewart had to make do with bronze with a mad dash at the line to pass a fading Prefontaine.Final thought:probably lucky for some,a future champion over this distance,Ethiopian Mirus Yifter,was mysteriously a DNS...he might have made a difference!