French athletics star Michel Jazy dies aged 87

Former middle distance world record holder Michel Jazy has died at the age of 87, the French athletics federation told AFP on Thursday.

A two-time European champion and Olympic silver medallist over 1,500 metres, Jazy achieved nine middle distance world records during his career.

Born in 1936 in northern France into a family of Polish miners, Jazy obtained French nationality at the age of 18 before participating in his first Olympic Games two years later.

At a time when the world athletics championships did not exist, he won everything except the Olympic title, finishing second over 1,500m in 1960 and fourth in the 5,000 metres in 1964.

"I'm devastated," FFA president Andre Giraud told AFP. "For the world of athletics and the FFA, it's a huge loss given everything he represented, especially in this year of the Olympic Games in Paris."

He was one of the biggest stars of French sport at the time, alongside cyclist Jacques Anquetil.

"Jazy left his mark on our sport with his results and his world records, he loomed large in French sport," Pierre Weiss, former director of the FFA and a close friend of the Jazy family, told AFP.

"With (figure skater) Alain Calmat, he pulled crowds into the bistros where there were TV screens, that was something."