Brendan's first medal came in the form of a bronze in the 1000m at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1970. He then followed this up with another bronze medal, this time in the 1500m at the 1971 European Championships in Helsinki. By this time, he was a bona fide British track and field athlete, whose best was yet to come.
In 1973, Brendan would break the World Record for two miles when he ran a time of 8:13.8 at Crystal Palace – a record he would hold for five years, putting his name in the history books. Foster would then go onto run greater distances and would record his first gold medal in the 5000m at the 1974 European Championships in Rome, following on from a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games earlier that year.
In what was a monumental year for Brendan, he would break the 3000m World Record on his home track Gateshead International Stadium with a time of 7:35.1, which together with his medal achievements in the 1974 Games, would win him the celebrated BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
He would then win his first and only Olympic medal in the 10,000m at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montréal, which would see him appointed as an MBE in the New Year Honours.
His final medal would come in the 1978 European Championships in Edmonton, where he won gold. He would also break Lasse Viren’s Olympic record in the 5000m preliminaries of the 1980 Olympic Games. The record would hold until the 1984 Olympic Games. This was to be his final tournament at international level. In 2008, he was appointed CBE in the New Year Honours. It was in 2010 that Brendan was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame.
Foster has also had major success as a businessman, having worked his way up to VP of Nike Europe. He would later co-found Nova International (later View From International) which would supply the British athletics team. It was later sold to M&S in 2002 for an estimated two-million pounds. He was also awarded the IAAD Golden Order of Merit for his contributions to the advancements of athletics in 2017.
