Paavo Nurmi

Paavo Nurmi

Nurmi at the 1920 Summer Olympics
Medal record
Men's athletics
Representing Finland
Olympic Games
	1920 Antwerp	10000 m
	1920 Antwerp	Individual cross country
	1920 Antwerp	Team cross country
	1924 Paris	1500 m
	1924 Paris	5000 m
	1924 Paris	Individual cross country
	1924 Paris	Team cross country
	1924 Paris	3000 m team
	1928 Amsterdam	10000 m
	1920 Antwerp	5000 m
	1928 Amsterdam	5000 m
	1928 Amsterdam	3000 m steeplechase

Paavo Johannes Nurmi (pronunciation^ⓘ) (13 June 1897 – 2 October 1973) was a Finnish runner. Born in Turku, he was known as one of the "Flying Finns"; a term given to him, Hannes Kolehmainen, Ville Ritola and others for their distinction in running. During the 1920s, Nurmi was the best middle and long distance runner in the world, setting 22 official world records at distances between 1500 m and 20 km.

Nurmi won a total of nine gold and three silver medals in the 12 events in which he competed at the Olympic Games from 1920 to 1928. In particular, he won five gold medals at the 1924 Summer Olympics held in Paris, which is still the most athletics gold medals at one Olympics in the history of the Games. In 1932, Nurmi was unable to compete at the Olympics as he was controversially branded a professional. Nurmi later lit the Olympic Flame at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.

Career

Nurmi was born in Turku, Finland. At the age of 15, he was inspired by the performances of Hannes Kolehmainen, who "ran Finland onto the map of the world" at the 1912 Summer Olympics. In 1914, he joined the sports club Turun Urheiluliitto. On 29 May 1920, he set his first national record on the 3,000 m.

Olympic career

Nurmi at the 1924 Summer Olympics

Nurmi debuted at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, by competing in four events. He started by finishing second to Frenchman Joseph Guillemot in the 5,000 m. This would remain the only time that Nurmi lost to a non-Finnish runner in the Olympics. He went on to win gold medals in his other events: the 10,000 m, sprinting past Guillemot on the final curve and improving his personal best by over a minute, the cross country event and the cross country team event. By the end of 1923, Nurmi held the world records for the mile, the 5,000 m and the 10,000 m at the same time, a feat not matched by any other athlete before or since.

In 1924, Nurmi won five gold medals in five events, including the 1500 m, 5000 m (with less than two hours between the final races; as a try-out he had tested the even tighter original schedule earlier in the same year and broken the world record in both of these events), the 3000 m team race, and again both cross country events. It was the last time these cross country events were held, as the great heat (45 °C, 113 °F) caused more than half of the competitors to abandon the race, and many more had to be taken to hospital. Finnish officials, fearing for his health, refused to enter Nurmi in the 10,000 m event. Thus, he was unable to defend his title. An angry Nurmi protested after returning to Finland by setting a 10,000 m world record that would last for almost 13 years.

Nurmi with President Calvin Coolidge during his 1925 U.S. tour

In early 1925, when he held the 1,500 m, the mile, the 3,000 m, the 5,000 m and the 10,000 m world records simultaneously, Nurmi embarked on a widely-publicized tour of the United States and competed in 55 events (45 indoors and 10 outdoors) during a five-month period, starting at a sold-out Madison Square Garden. He broke 12 indoor world records in regular events, and set several new best times for rarer distances. Nurmi won 51 of the events, abandoned one race and lost only three; two handicap races, and an 880-yard sprint to the home country's star half-miler Alan Helffrich.

At the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nurmi won the 10,000 m narrowly ahead of countryman Ville Ritola and finished a close second in 5,000 m, losing the gold to Ritola. In the 3,000 m steeplechase, Nurmi took another silver as fellow Finns Toivo Loukola, who set a new world record, and Ove Andersen took the other medals. Nurmi's time in the final also bettered the previous world record. In 1929, Nurmi toured the U.S. for the second time.

Nurmi intended to end his career in the 10,000 m and marathon events at the 1932 Summer Olympics, but he was branded a professional before the Games and barred from running in Los Angeles. The main instigators of the ban were the Swedish officials, especially Sigfrid Edström, the president of the IAAF and vice-president of the IOC. Edström claimed that Nurmi had received too much money for his travel expenses to one of his U.S. tours. This was seen as jealousy by many in Finland and in part led to Finland refusing to participate in the traditional Finland-Sweden international athletics event until 1939.

However, Nurmi did travel to Los Angeles and kept training at the Olympic Village. Despite pleas from all the entrants of the marathon, Nurmi was not allowed to compete at the Games. Although he had suffered from injuries, he claimed he would have won the marathon by five minutes after the event was over. The Guardian had earlier reported that "some of his trial times were almost unbelievable." Nurmi had set his heart on ending his career with a marathon gold medal, as his fellow countryman Hannes Kolehmainen had done shortly after the First World War.

Nurmi's record of twelve track and field Olympic medals stands to this day. He ties Larisa Latynina, Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis with nine Olympic gold medals, second only to Michael Phelps with fifteen. His 12th Olympic medal broke the previous record of 11 set by Carl Osburn at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. Nurmi's Olympic medal record would stand until the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, when Edoardo Mangiarotti won his 13th medal in fencing. Nurmi is often considered the greatest track and field athlete of all time.

Later life

Nurmi lights the Olympic Flame

The Finnish Athletic Federation did not accept Nurmi's sentence, and he continued running in Finland as a national amateur. Nurmi ended his career in a 10,000 m victory in Viipuri on 16 September 1934. During his career, Nurmi set 22 official outdoor world records on distances between 1,500 m and 20 km. His indoor world records were unofficial as the IAAF did not ratify indoor records until 1987. Throughout his career, Nurmi was known to never race without a stopwatch in his hand, although he occasionally tossed it aside after building up a sufficient space cushion between himself and rival runners.

In the early 1940, during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union, Nurmi returned to the US with compatriot Taisto Mäki, who had become the first man to run the 10,000 m under 30 minutes, to raise funds and rally support to the Finnish cause.

A Finnish national hero, Paavo Nurmi was the lighter of the Olympic Flame at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. In retirement he ran a haberdashery store in Helsinki, and owned a housing construction company which built several houses and apartment buildings around Helsinki. Nurmi also made money on the stock market, eventually becoming one of Finland's richest people.

In his final years, starting around 1967, when he allowed the Finnish President Urho Kekkonen (a personal friend and sports enthusiast) to interview him for his 70th birthday over the Finnish Public Radio YLE, Nurmi gave more newspaper and magazine interviews. Suffering from health problems especially since the late 1960s, with at least one heart attack, a stroke and failing eyesight, he at times spoke bitterly about sports, calling it a waste of time compared to science and art. Nurmi died in 1973 in Helsinki and was given a state funeral.

Personal life

Nurmi was a vegetarian from the age of 12. He had a brief marriage with Sylvi Laaksonen, from 1932 to 1935. Their son Matti was a Finnish national-level middle-distance runner in the 1950s. Hollywood actress Maila Nurmi, best-known as the horror icon "Vampira", claimed to be Paavo Nurmi's niece.

During his competitive running career, which lasted from about 1919 to 1934, Nurmi earned a reputation for speaking very little off the track, earning him the nickname "Great Silent One" (Suuri vaikenija) from some contemporary Finns. An illustration of this was his two-word reply to a congratulatory speech during his 1925 tour of the United States which consisted of simply "Thank you!"

Recognition

A statue of Nurmi in Lausanne

A bronze statue of Nurmi was sculpted by Wäinö Aaltonen. Copies of the statue cast from the original mould exist in Nurmi's home town Turku, in front of the Helsinki Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, and at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Finnish astronomer Yrjö Väisälä named an asteroid after Nurmi in 1939; 1740 Paavo Nurmi. A widely publicized practical joke by students at the Helsinki University of Technology took place in 1961, when a team of students smuggled a statue of Nurmi onto the 300-year-old wreck of the Swedish Regalskeppet Vasa just days before its lifting from the bottom of the sea. An annual Paavo Nurmi Marathon has been held in Wisconsin, US, since 1969. Another marathon bearing the name has been held in Turku since 1991. Finlandia University, an American college with Finnish roots, named their athletic center after Nurmi.

Along with Abebe Bikila, Nurmi appears in William Goldman's novel Marathon Man, as one of the protagonist's heroes whom he fantasises encouraging him. A ten-mark bill featuring Nurmi was issued by the Bank of Finland in 1987. A stadium in Turku was named the Paavo Nurmi Stadion in 1997. Nurmi is mentioned in The Simpsons episode, "Goo Goo Gai Pan", where Mr. Burns defends the strength of his antique motorcar by declaring, "Did you know that this car once outraced the Flying Finn, Paavo Nurmi?" The most famous Hungarian steam locomotive, the 424, had one of its nicknames after him because of its speed. In 2012, Nurmi was named among the first twelve athletes to be inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame.

See also

• List of multiple Olympic gold medalists
• List of multiple Olympic gold medalists at a single Games

External links

• Paavo Nurmi 100 years