Rider's legends: Lasse Viren

Lasse Viren crosses the line in the 5000m at Montreal

BBC Olympics presenter Steve Rider highlights some of the great Olympians from the pages of history.

Away from the Olympics Lasse Viren's career was hardly the stuff of legends but his long-distant performances in Munich '72 and Montreal '76 gave him sporting immortality.

The Flying Finn competed an unprecedented and unlikely-to-be-repeated `double double` taking gold in the 5000m and 10,000m at successive Games.

Viren originally only intended to run the 5000m in Munich. He had hardly shone in the previous two years but began to peak at the right time and such was his form approaching the Games, it was felt he should try for the double.

It was a dramatic 10,000m that brought the first of Viren's four golds and the one he most savours to this day.

Fall

His chances seemed to have disappeared when reigning Olympic 5000m champion Mohamed Gammoudi tripped bring down Viren as well.

The Munich 10,000m was Viren's first gold

Incredibly Viren not only caught up with the disappearing pack but won in a record-breaking time.

"Yes I fell over but I did not have time to think that the dream was over. I just got up as fast as I could and tried to catch up," he now recalls.

"However I do remember that because it all happened so quickly I was disorientated and thought I was running in the wrong direction after I got up.

"The first medal was the most special. Winning is the goal for any athlete when he attends the Olympics and winning that first medal was so special. Everybody wants to win the Olympics and I was no different."

There were less dramas as he won the 5000m to become the fourth athlete to win a distance double.

Montreal

In Canada four years later he became the first runner to repeat the achievement, again after indifferent form in the two years before the Games.

Lasse Viren: Political leanings

"Times were different then. It was not a full time profession and you were not running for money," said Viren, who was a policeman in Finland.

"Not every competition was as hard so you had to be rational with the time you took off for training. Of course with the Olympics it was different."

Viren pushed himself to the limit at Montreal winning the 10,000m and a very tight 5000m before trying to emulate the great Emil Zatopek who added the marathon to his distant double in 1952.

Viren finished fifth. He was human after all.

For someone who started running as a hobby, Viren finds it hard to pinpoint the secret of his success.

Winning is the goal for any athlete when he attends the Olympics

  Lasse Viren

"I was in very good shape but so were the other athletes," he said.

"I guess the mental power was the hard bit. It really became a question of mentality - finding the strength between the ears."

Politics

Viren now lives with wife in Helsinki and runs once a week to keep fit but he remains firmly in the public eye.

Like a certain Sebastian Coe, Viren moved into politics and since 1999 he has been an MP in Finland's ruling Conservative Party.