Paavo Nurmi ran with a stopwatch until he threw it on the grass
In the 1924 Olympic 5,000 metres, Paavo Nurmi's rivals set a world-record pace, hoping to exhaust him; he had won the 1,500 metres less than two hours earlier. Nurmi, who usually raced against the watch in his hand, realised this was a race against people. He tossed the stopwatch aside and beat them.
Born in Turku in 1897 to a carpenter, Nurmi left school at 12 after his father's death, working as a bakery errand boy and pushing heavy carts up the city's steep streets. He later credited those hills with building his back and legs. At 15, inspired by Hannes Kolehmainen's triumphs at the 1912 Olympics, he bought his first pair of sneakers and began training in earnest, running cross country in summer and skiing in winter.
Army service sharpened him. While other conscripts marched, Nurmi ran the whole route carrying a rifle and a pack filled with sand. He also held onto the back of moving trains to lengthen his stride and wore heavy iron-shod boots to build strength. At the 1920 Antwerp Olympics he lost the 5,000 metres to the Frenchman Joseph Guillemot, the only time a non-Finn would beat him at the Games, and then won three golds.
That defeat turned him into an analyst. He began carrying a stopwatch and spreading his effort evenly instead of burning out early, an approach credited with introducing even pacing to distance running. In 1923 he held world records in the mile, 5,000 and 10,000 metres at once, something nobody has matched since. Before the Paris Games he rehearsed the Olympic schedule by setting world records in the 1,500 and 5,000 metres inside an hour.
Paris brought five golds, including a cross country race run in 45 degrees Celsius heat that left most of the field unable to finish and led officials to drop the event. Nurmi, barely troubled, was still angry that Finnish officials had barred him from defending his 10,000 metres title. Across his career he set 22 world records, won nine Olympic golds and went unbeaten in 121 races at his peak. Accused of breaching amateur rules, he was banned from the 1932 Games. He later became one of Finland's wealthiest men and lit the Olympic flame in Helsinki in 1952.
Source: Paavo Nurmi
