Michel Jazy

Michel Jazy (13 June 1936 – 1 February 2024) was a French middle-distance runner and long-distance runner.

He won the 1500 metres silver medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics, as well as two golds (in 1962 and 1966) and one silver (in 1966) at the European Championships.

Jazy won his first French national championship title in 1953 – the 1000 m race at the youth level (for those under the age of 18 years).

He won his second French national championship title in 1955 – the 1500 m race at the junior level (for those under the age of 20 years).

His first coach was René Frassinelli, who with Charles Poulenard (the coach of the French, middle-distance runner Jules Ladoumègue), quickly saw Jazy’s potential.

In August 1956, Jazy joined the air force.

He did 27 months of military service there, but his running career was not interrupted.

In his first participation at the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956, Jazy clocked a time of 3:50.0 in the 1500 metres, which equaled his personal best but was not sufficient to reach the final.

Yet Jazy was pleased with those Games because he was selected to share a room with the legendary Alain Mimoun.

It was a life-changing experience for Jazy.

“I came to realize down there in Melbourne what glory was and what sacrifices were necessary in the years ahead to obtain it.

Alain Mimoun opened my eyes to what I needed to do.

I became hungry.

I had got the message.”

He set a national record for the 1,500 meters in 1957.

In the same year he married Irène Denis, a secretary from Paris.

After Jazy left the air force at the end of 1958, he worked at a printing plant.

His employers there had no sympathy with his athletics training schedule and forced him to work overtime.

To his rescue came Gaston Meyer, the editor-in-chief of the French daily sports newspaper L'Équipe.

Convinced that Jazy could become a champion, Meyer gave Jazy an afternoon typographer's job, which enabled him to train in the mornings.

They had two daughters, Pascale (born 1960) and Véronique (born 1963).

At the next Olympic Games in Rome in 1960, Jazy won the silver medal in the 1500 metres.

In the final, Jazy ran the race of his life to obliterate his personal best time and set a new national record, finishing 18 metres and 2.8 seconds behind Herb Elliott.

Elliott won the final in a new world record time.

In the 1964 Olympics 5000 metres final in Tokyo, Jazy took the lead halfway into the first bend of the final lap.

He set nine world records in the mile (once), 2000 metres (twice) and 3000 metres (twice), the two miles (twice) and the 4×1500 metres relay (twice).

Jazy was born into a poor coal-mining family from Poland.

His grandfather, together with his wife and their daughter, emigrated from Poland to France after World War I.

They settled in Oignies.

Michel's grandfather worked as a coal miner in nearby Ostricourt.

Michel's father was also a coal miner, whereas Michel's mother worked in a brewery in Lille.

Michel was raised by his grandmother during much of his childhood.

He was 12 years old when his father died of silicosis.

When Michel was 14 years old, he, his mother (Marianne Jazy) and his older sister (Alfreda) settled in Paris.

Marianne worked as a waitress in a café in Montmartre.

Marianne remarried; her new husband, a truck driver, moved the family into a 10-by-12-foot (3 × 4 m), one-room apartment on Rue Rodier in Montmartre.

Michel was passionate about football when he was a schoolboy.

As a schoolboy, he would spend hours daily playing football.

Michel left school at the age of 14 and became a uniformed doorman and elevator operator at a bridge club near the Arc de Triomphe.

At 16 he became an apprentice in a neighborhood printshop.