Mike Tagg

Mike Tagg was born on a Norfolk farm where he lived with his parents and older sister Mary who, like Mike, competed at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. Mike attended Thorpe Grammar School where he started running in preference to football. He joined the Great Yarmouth club where his sister was a member.

At the age of 14, Tagg won the English schools junior one mile title in 1961, and two years later won the schools’ intermediate cross-country title. Between 1964-67 Tagg won six England Schools, Eastern-Counties, Inter-County, and Junior English cross-country titles. On the track in that same period, he won the English Schools one mile and AAA junior two-mile (1964), AAA junior one mile (1965), and Universities Athletic Union (UAU) one mile and Southern Counties three miles (1967) titles.

Tagg never won a senior AAAs title but was third in the six miles in 1968, and third again in the 10,000 metres the following year. He went to the Mexico Olympics and finished 13th in the 10,000, but had a memorable year in 1969 as he won the senior English cross-country title and enjoyed his finest moment by winning silver at the European Championships at Athens. Tagg enjoyed another special year in 1970 when he took the 10,000 bronze medal behind fellow Briton Jack Lane at the World Student Games (Summer Universiade) in Torino, Also that year Tagg beat Gaston Roelants into second place to win the International Cross-Country individual title at Vichy, France, adding to the junior title he won at Rabat, Morocco in 1966.

Tagg attended Reading University and then did a post-graduate course at Loughborough College. He taught at a school in Thetford, Norfolk, before entering the commercial world firstly with Adidas, and then as the managing director of Nike UK, and he played a pivotal role in bringing the American sports shoe manufacturer to Britain. In 1978, however, Tagg started his own company, Mr. Shoes selling a wide range of shoes, not just for sportsmen and women. Tagg contracted leukaemia in 2005 but it was controlled after treatment.

Personal Best: 10000 – 28:14.65 (1971).