Vegetarian Sportspeople

Emerich Rath

Vegetarian sportsman, Emerich Rath was famous in the first half of the 20th century but is hardly known today. So we would like to introduce him to you.

Rath won more than 500 competitions, championships and races all around Europe. He was heavyweight boxing champion of Germany, a long distance walking and running champion, a skiing pioneer and champion and participated in the Olympic games in London (1908) and Stockholm (1912). He also modelled in early body building books.

Emerich Rath was born in Prague in 1883 in a German family, and spent his childhood in the north of Bohemia (now Czech Republic). He became a vegetarian at the age of 16, proudly claiming to be a vegetarian after every competition he won. He moved to Germany, was active in many sports clubs and became one of the best long distance athletes.

A famous sportsman and vegetarian, he was glorified in many sports magazines and books. A quote from the book “Fleshless Diet” (J. L. Buttner, New York 1910):
"Mr. Rath won the fifty kilometres race with military equipment organized by the Komet Sporting Club of Berlin. His equipment weighed sixty two lbs., and he covered the distance in six hours and thirty -two minutes. Medical examinations showed that Rath’s heart was in excellent condition when he finished and he had only lost 2.8 kilograms when other competitors lost up to four kilograms."

Rath would later complete this race in 6 hours and 13 minutes and this record was never beaten. In 1905 he published a book about his training methods. He wrote: "I became a vegetarian at the age of 16 and without a doubt can say that meatless nutrition is able to fulfill the most physically active man." He ate mostly fresh fruit, bread, nuts and seeds, vegetables and from time to time drank milk. He was also a teetotaller. During his long distance walks he ate raisins and almonds and drank grape juice.

An article published in “Olympic Review” from 1941 by C. Diem states:
"I remember among these victorious vegetarians an outstanding endurance walker, a winner of innumerable pack marches, competition endurance walks and long distance skiing contests, Emerich Rath of Prague. He wasn’t in any way a thin man, as is often the case with vegetarians. On the contrary he was stocky and athletic and had especially strong bones and tremendous muscular development, a true Hercules.”

Rath opened his own sports shop in Prague in 1929 and it quickly became one of the best in the city. If you ever visit Prague, walk through the street “Na Prikopech” and in the middle you’ll find a passage to the “Ovocny trh” Square where his sports shop was. The passage is named after him, "Rath’s Passage" but only few people know why.

In 1954, at the age of 71, he was still able to run a 10 kilometre race in very good time. In a letter to the World Vegetarian Congress in Hamburg in 1960, he wished the vegetarian movement all the best. He also described how he was planning to go to the 1960 Olympics in Rome by bike and with a tent (a journey of 3000 kilometres). At the time he was 77 years’ old!
However, he was not granted permission to leave Czechoslovakia, so the sport champion and early Olympics competitor could only follow the games on television and radio. These, by the way, were the Olympics where another vegetarian, Murray Rose, triumphed (see below).

Emerich Rath died in an old people’s home on 21 December 1962 at the age of 79. His admission record of the retirement home states „want work and do sports".

2003 marked the 120th anniversary of Rath’s birth. Emerich Rath was a real European. He was active as a sportsman across Europe, spoke 8 languages and was a member of many sports clubs in Czechoslovakia, Germany and Britain. The Czech Vegetarian Society nominated Emerich Rath for the Fair Play Award of the Czech Olympic Committee and he posthumously received the prize in March 2004.

There are a number of other athletes who live according to the vegetarian life style. We’ve picked out a few names for you.

Murray Rose

With four Olympic gold medals, a silver and a bronze, Murray Rose is one of the undisputed legends of Australian swimming. In the late 1950s he was untouchable over 400 metres and 1,500 metres, setting a total of 15 world records. The 1956 Games in Melbourne provided Rose with his finest moment. He won three gold medals - in the 400m, the 1,500m and the 4x200m freestyle relay.
Rose was just 17 when he won his hat-trick of gold medals in Melbourne. His unusual diet, which was vegetarian and involved eating seaweed, earned him the sobriquet of "the Seaweed Streak".

Edwin Moses

Edwin may have retired from intermediate hurdles competition more than a dozen years ago, but his impact on the event is still felt today. On the all-time top 25 performance list for 400m hurdlers, Edwin's name still appears 13 times.
Edwin won two gold medals in Olympic competition, and missed out on what almost certainly would have been his third due to the 1980 U.S. Olympic boycott. He broke the world record four times, won the first two World Championships, and once went almost a decade - and 122 finals - without losing a race.
Moses isn’t only a vegetarian, he also spoke out against performance enhancing drug use. He recognized early on how damaging the use of such drugs by athletes could be, both for the health of the athlete and the sport. In 1983, he made the first major public challenge in the assault against performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Together with other dedicated track and field athletes he became a pioneer in the development, administration, and implementation of the sport world's most stringent random in-competition drug testing systems.

Martina Navratilova

Winning the 2003 mixed doubles took Martina Navratilova to the record-equalling mark of 20 Wimbledon titles, an honour she shares with Billie Jean King (another vegetarian athlete). Her nine singles titles at Wimbledon are still to be surpassed, as is her achievement of winning six in a row between 1982 and 1987, making her the ultimate Queen of Wimbledon. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Navratilova raised the women's game to a new level with power and aggression.
The Czech-born left-hander, who became a naturalised American in 1975, also set new standards with her astonishing fitness levels and commitment. At the start of her career, her rivalry with Chris Evert was one of the greatest in any sport. She retired in 1994, only to return later to play doubles matches and as a result, winning that famous 20th title.
Being a vegetarian and animal rights' activist, she recently called on the Australian government and Prime Minister John Howard to end the painful mulesing mutilation of sheep. Most sheep in Australia undergo “mulesing,” whereby farmers slice away folds of skin from beneath the sheep's tail which forms a wool-free scar and so prevents blowfly strike (blowflies lay their eggs in the damp wool and the larvae eat into the flesh of the living sheep). This is carried out without anaesthetic. Mulesing is carried out because it is seen as being cheaper and easier than alternatives such as regular shearing of wool. The practice is prohibited in the UK.

Sean Yates

Sean Yates is one of Britain's most popular and successful cyclists who inspired a generation of riders after winning a stage on the Tour de France. In a professional career lasting 15 seasons, Sean rode 17 major tours and countless classics, scoring many great victories along the way. He wore the yellow jersey of the Tour de France, won the Grand Prix Eddy Merckx, stages in both the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, the National Road Race Championship, the US Pro Championship and the Tour of Belgium. Having established himself as one of the world’s leading time-trialists, Sean’s win in the 1988 Tour de France long time trial set a record for the fastest stage in the race’s long history. He also dedicated his career to helping his various team leaders over the years, Lance Armstrong being amongst those who enjoyed his services. Yates, who retired in 1996, has recently signed a three-year contract to head Armstrong’s newly formed Discovery Channel team. The team is geared around the six times’ yellow jersey holder winning an unprecedented 7 time.
Vegetarian Yates already made his name as a sporting director with the Linda McCartney Foods team, a professional cycling team that was sponsored by her range of vegetarian foods.