Oldest living U.S. Olympian, WWII hero helps Keep LA Running
Louie Zamperini to serve as a spokesman/starter for July 12 event

LOS ANGELES, May 21, 2009 - Louie Zamperini, a World War II hero who is believed to be the oldest living U.S. Olympian at 92, will be the spokesperson and the honorary starter for the 16th annual Keep L.A. Running Charity 5K Walk /Run, 10K Run and 10/20 mile Coastal Bike Cruise, Sunday, July 12, at Dockweiler Beach in Playa Del Rey, Calif. Zamperini will share spokesperson duties with multi-world record holder Henry Rono of Kenya.

Keep LA. Running, which has grown into one of the most popular distance running events in Southern California, has raised over $800,000 for its beneficiary charities. Keep LA Running is a very special event, benefiting children with cancer, premature born babies and other worthy causes. The event was initiated in 1994 by then SEIU Local 660 L.A. County/Special Districts Employees Emergency Disaster Relief Fund to provide a safety net for L.A. County employees. The Emergency Relief Fund is a 501 (c) (3) not for profit organization (EIN 95-4842244).

As the event has grown in profile, popularity and funds generated, it has added new charities - the Pediatric Oncology Service, Women's and Children's Hospital of LAC + USC Medical Center and the Harbor UCLA Medical Center Neonatal Ward. Recently Keep LA Running partnered with Rebuild Sylmar Long Term Recovery Committee to provide $50,000 in financial assistance to victims of the November 2008 Sylmar fires.

Zamperini, who turns 93 next January, is believed to be the oldest living U.S Olympian. He was 19, just fresh out of Torrance High, when he finished 8th in the 5000 meters at the Berlin Games in 1936.

By his own accounts, Zamperini was a "problem kid, a delinquent," as a youngster. Urged by his brother, he took up running to "straighten up." He finished dead last in his first race, inter-class trials. One week later, in a dual track meet against Narbonne, he was about to give up when encouraging "Go Louie" shouts from the crowd gave him the strength to pass the Narbonne runner ahead of him. "That's the race I remember most fondly, more than the Olympic race in Berlin, more than the NCAA titles," Zamperini says. "That race changed my life. I was shocked to realize people knew my name. Instantly I became a running fanatic."

Louie wouldn't lose another race for 3 and-a-half years. As a junior, he set a national high school record in the mile (4:21) that stood for 20 years.

Fresh out of high school, Louie got a free pass on Southern Pacific (his dad was working for the railroad) and went to New York to compete in the 1936 Olympic Trials. Thinking he had no chance in the 1500 meters, he entered the 5000 meters instead. He finished second and made the Olympic team. On the boat to Europe he gained 14 pounds indulging in the good food he didn't have at home. He placed 8th in the Olympic final in Berlin in a 41-man field and got an audience with Hitler.

After the Olympics, Zamperini's career flourished at USC under legendary coach Dean Cromwell. He was a two-time NCAA mile champion (1938-39) and a member of three USC NCAA track championship teams. He ran the mile in 4:08. The mark stood as the national collegiate record for 15 years.

Zamperini's athletic career, however, pales in comparison to the mental and physical toughness he showed in surviving World War II. He was training hard at the air base he was stationed in Hawaii and was in the best shape of his life. The great Swede, Gunder Hagg, was in the States, and some promoters wanted Lou to run against him, but he was denied permission to leave the base.

During the war in the Pacific, Lou was a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator when his plane crashed on a search-and-rescue mission south of Hawaii in May, 1943, killing eight of his crewmates. Zamperini and another survivor drifted nearly 2,000 miles in the ocean, living in terror every day and night because of the sharks that constantly surrounded the raft. On the 47th day the two men were picked up by a Japanese patrol boat and imprisoned. Zamperini, who had weighed 160 pounds when his plane crashed, was down to 67 pounds and could barely walk. When he refused to make propaganda broadcasts, Zamperini was sent to a slave labor camp where he was tortured daily by Japanese Army Sergeant Matsuhiro Watanabe, a vicious guard nicknamed "The Bird." (After the war Watanabe, with a $25,000 ransom on his head, escaped prosecution as a war criminal by hiding out in the remote mountains near Nagano until the statute of limitations ran out.)

By the time he was liberated, Zamperini, still weighed just 80 pounds, and he says his weight climbed that high only by stealing food from the Japanese. Zamperini forgave his captors and, more than 50 years after the end of the war, was invited to carry a torch for the US team at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. While in Nagano, he discovered that The Bird was still alive, but all attempts to reconcile were thwarted by Watanabe's family.

"Initially he agreed to meet with me," Zamperini says, "but later I was told that his son was against it. He said he believed I expected his father to bow and apologize. But I only wanted to have lunch and talk about our families and life."