AMES, Iowa – John Nuttall, an Iowa State Hall-of-Famer, Olympian and one of the school’s greatest long-distance runners, died yesterday from a heart attack. He was 56.

A native of Preston, Lancashire, England, Nuttall was already a huge success on the junior circuit before he arrived at Iowa State in 1988. He set a record in the 3,000-meter run at the English Schools Championship in Hull in 1986 with a clocking of 8:10.4, a record that remarkably still stands today.

Iowa State Hall of Fame track & field coach Bill Bergan landed the services of Nuttall where he achieved unprecedented success as a Cyclone during the program’s most prosperous period. Nuttall was a six-time All-American and eight-time Big Eight champion, helping the team win multiple Big Eight track and cross-country titles.

Nuttall was the runner-up NCAA champion four times in his illustrious career, finishing second in the 5,000-meter outdoors twice (1989, 1990) and the 3,000-meter indoors twice (1990, 1991). Nuttall’s crowning achievement as a Cyclone was in the fall of 1989. Bergan had built the Cyclone cross country team into a national power thanks to Nuttall. At the 1989 NCAA Cross Country Championship in Annapolis, Md., Nuttall crossed the finish line first (29:30.55) to claim the national title and the school’s first-ever NCAA Cross Country team championship.

Nuttall, who was inducted into Iowa State’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001, continued to excel internationally after he left Ames. He made Great Britain’s Olympic team in 1996, competing in the 5,000-meter run.

He also competed for Great Britain in the 5k in the 1993 and 1995 World Championships and won a bronze medal for England at the Commonwealth Games in 1994.

After retiring from competition, Nuttall helped support British endurance runners as a coach and mentor.