Eight-time AAA champion and the first ever British Athletics Writers' Association athlete of the year has died.

Maurice Herriott, who won Olympic silver in the 3000m steeplechase at the 1964 Tokyo Games and remains one of the most decorated British steeplechasers of all time, died on Monday (Aug 24) at the age of 86 following a short illness and surrounded by his family.

Herriott's Olympic medal, in a lifetime best of 8:32.4, came at the peak of a career built around eight AAA titles between 1959 and 1967 – a haul that stands unmatched to this day – achieved while he worked a 45-hour week as a motorcycle fitter at the Birmingham Small Arms factory, fitting three training sessions a day around his shifts.

He was introduced to the steeplechase as a 17-year-old by his coach, Tom Heeley, a former marathon runner, in the year after Chris Brasher's unexpected Olympic steeplechase title in 1956. Herriott won the AAA junior mile steeplechase title in 1957 and set an unofficial world junior record for 3000m steeplechase the following year. He became senior AAA champion for the first time in 1959, aged 19, and earned his first Great Britain call-up soon after.

A first Olympics eluded him in 1960, but by 1961 he was ranked second on the UK all-time list behind Brasher after clocking 8:42.0. Injury forced him to withdraw from the 1962 European Championships final, though he made amends that November with silver at the Commonwealth Games in Perth.

The breakthrough came in 1963: he broke the British record four times, finished the year ranked fifth in the world and was named the first ever British Athletics Writers' Association Athlete of the Year, alongside sprinter Dorothy Hyman – an honour he would win again in 1965.

By 1964 he arrived in Tokyo a genuine medal prospect. In the Olympic final, Herriott recovered from a significant deficit on Belgium's Gaston Roelants – the world's dominant steeplechaser of the era – over the closing stages, eventually finishing just 10 metres behind Roelants' winning time of 8:30.8. His silver was one of eight further medals won by Britain in Tokyo, a Games that also delivered Olympic titles for Lynn Davies, Ken Matthews, Mary Rand and Ann Packer.

He continued competing at the highest level for the rest of the decade, coming close to his own UK record again in both 1966 and 1967, before retiring after the 1968 Mexico Olympics. He settled on the Isle of Man, where he spent 14 years crewing a deep-sea trawler before managing a recycling plant.

Herriott was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017. Despite his longevity and consistency at international level over more than a decade, some who followed his career closely, including regular AW correspondents, long felt his achievements never received the wider recognition they deserved.

Eric Shirley, an Olympic steeplechaser in 1956 and 1960, said: "I venture to suggest that Maurice in representing his country has run more races in 'at the time' world-class times than than any other GB steeplechaser in history."

Tributes have begun to circulate among the British athletics community. Writing on Facebook, friend and former training partner Chris Quine described Herriott as "arguably one of Britain's greatest ever steeplechasers" and "a kind and modest family man."