In 1959, Ken Matthews of the Sutton Coldfield Walking Club won the first of his six consecutive RWA 10 miles titles, and as he also won the 2 miles and 7 miles at the AAA Championships that year he was the British champion in all three walking events, a feat he repeated in 1961, 1963 and 1964. With victories in the Olympic Games in 1964, the European Championships in 1962 and the Lugano Cup in 1961 and 1963, Matthews won four of the five major international races in which he took part and his only failure came in the 1960 Olympic Games. Starting as one of the favorites for the 20 km. title in Rome, he made a rare error of pace judgment and failed to finish. Four years later in Tokyo Matthews was a convincing winner, finishing ahead of Dieter Lindner of East Germany and the Russian Leonid Spirin, who had won he Olympic title in 1960 and was to win a second gold medal in 1968 after Matthews had retired. Matthews, who was an electrician at Hams Hall Power Station, near Sutton Coldfield, was the only British Olympic champion in Tokyo who was not honored with an MBE at the end of the year. A campaign from within the sport to rectify this finally succeeded in 1978 and Matthews was appointed an MBE 14 years after his Olympic victory.
Personal Bests: 10kmW – 42:35.6 (1960); 20kmW – 1-28:15 (1960); Hour – 13,927 metres (8 miles, 1,154 yards) (1964).
Great Britain