Fred Norris (athlete)

Fred Norris (4 September 1921 – 13 December 2006) was a British long-distance runner born in Tyldesley who competed in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.^[1]

Fred Norris was born in Tyldesley. He left school at 14 to work in a machine shop before moving to Cleworth Hall Colliery in Tyldesley where he worked underground. As a young man he played football for local teams but switched to running after watching a newsreel film of Emil Zatopek's 10,000 metres victory in the 1948 London Olympics. He joined Leigh Harriers and then Bolton Harriers, training on the streets of Tyldesley in the early mornings before working 900 feet underground and running another eight to ten miles in the evenings.^[2]

Norris was seventh behind Zatopek in the 10,000 metres at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and ran in the marathon a Melbourne in 1956. He held 54 English, British, Commonwealth and European records and in 1959 won the International Cross Country Championships. He was injured and missed the 1960 Rome Olympics. He moved to America where he had a successful career before retiring aged 42. In 1986 he returned to Tyldesley and died there in 2006.^[2]

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