Sergei Popov

Sergei Konstantinovich Popov was a Russian marathon runner. He won a gold medal at the 1958 European Championships setting a new world record at 2:15:17; this record stood for more than two years and remained the Soviet national record until 1970. He also set a world record in Moscow, on 15 June 1958, for 30 kilometers, running 1:32:58.8. Popov won the Soviet marathon title in 1957, when he ran the world's fastest marathon of the year in 2:19:50 in Moscow, 1958 and 1959, and placed second in 1962 and third in 1963. In 1959, he set the course record at the Košice Peace Marathon, the third year in a row he ran the world's fastest time. He finished fifth at the 1960 Summer Olympics when the winner, Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila, broke Popov's world record by less than a second.