Yiannis Kouros - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yiannis Kouros - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yiannis Kouros (Greek: Γιάννης Κούρος),(born February 13, 1956 in Tripoli, Greece) is a Greek ultramarathon runner based in Melbourne. He is sometimes called the "Running God" or "Pheidippides Successor".[1] He holds every men's outdoor road world record from 100 to 1,000 miles and every road and track record from 12 hours to 6 days.[2] In 1991, he starred as Pheidippides in the movie The Story of the Marathon: A Hero's Journey, which chronicles the history of marathon running. Kouros came to prominence when he won the Spartathlon in 1984 in record time[3] and the Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon in 1985 in a record time of 5 days, 5 hours, 7 minutes and 6 seconds. He beat the previous record held by Cliff Young.[4] Kouros says that his secret is that "when other people get tired they stop, I DON'T. I take over my body with my mind I tell it that it's not tired and it listens". Kouros has also written over 1,000 poems (several of which appear in his book Symblegmata (Clusters)) and the book The Six-Day Run of the Century.