Although he accepted an invitation from President Lyndon B. Johnson to revisit the White House in 1964, Nurmi lived a very secluded life until the late 1960s when he began granting some press interviews.

* 1897 – Paavo Nurmi, Finnish runner ( d. 1973 )

Paavo Johannes Nurmi () ( 13 June 1897 – 2 October 1973 ) was a Finnish middle and long distance runner.

Seemingly untouched by the Paris heat wave, Nurmi won all his races and returned home with five gold medals, but embittered, as Finnish officials had refused to enter him for the 10, 000 m.

Nurmi later coached Finnish runners, raised funds for Finland during the Winter War, and worked as a haberdasher, building contractor and share trader, eventually becoming one of Finland's richest people.

During the Finnish Civil War in 1918, Nurmi remained politically passive and concentrated on his work and his Olympic ambitions.

Nurmi also tested his speed in the 800 m, winning the 1923 Finnish Championships with a new national record.

In the 3, 000 m team race on the next day, Nurmi and Ritola again finished first and second, and Elias Katz secured the gold medal for the Finnish team by finishing fifth.

Nurmi had won five gold medals in five events, but he left the Games embittered as the Finnish officials had allocated races between their star runners and prevented him from defending his title in the 10, 000 m, the distance that was dearest to him.

This marked the first time in over five years and 133 races that Nurmi had been defeated at a distance over 1, 000 m. In 1927, Finnish officials barred him from international competition for refusing to run against Eklöf at the Finland-Sweden international, cancelling the Peltzer rematch scheduled for Vienna.

In April 1932, the executive council of the International Amateur Athletics Federation ( IAAF ) suspended Nurmi from international athletics events, pending an investigation into his amateur status by the Finnish Athletics Federation.

It was customary of the IAAF to accept the final decision of its national branch, and the Associated Press wrote that " there is little doubt that if the Finnish federation clears Nurmi the international body will accept its decision without question.

" A week later, the Finnish Ahletics Federation ruled in favor of Nurmi, finding no evidence for the allegations of professionalism.

The Finnish Olympic Committee entered Nurmi for both the 10, 000 m and the marathon.

Edström's right-hand man Bo Ekelund, secretary general of the IAAF and head of the Swedish Athletics Federation, approached the Finnish officials and stated that he might be able to arrange for Nurmi to participate in the marathon outside the competition.

After ending his career, Nurmi became a coach for the Finnish Athletics Federation and trained runners for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

However, Nurmi returned to coaching three months later and the Finnish distance runners went on take three gold medals, three silvers and a bronze at the Games.

In February 1940, during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union, Nurmi returned to the United States with his protégé 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.

In 1952, Nurmi was persuaded by Urho Kekkonen, Prime Minister of Finland and former chairman of the Finnish Athletics Federation, to carry the Olympic torch into the Olympic Stadium at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.

In the cancelled 1940 Summer Olympics, Nurmi had been planned to lead a group of fifty Finnish gold medal winners.

Boken om Nurmi ( A Book of Nurmi ), released in Sweden in 1925, was the first biographical book on a Finnish sportsman.

Finnish astronomer Yrjö Väisälä named the main belt asteroid 1740 Paavo Nurmi after Nurmi in 1939, while Finnair named its first DC-8 Paavo Nurmi in 1969.

Nurmi, who rarely ran without a stopwatch in his hand, has been credited for introducing the " even pace " strategy and analytic approach to running, and for making running a major international sport.

Nurmi trained primarily by doing cross country running in the summers and cross country skiing in the winters.

On 19 June, Nurmi tried out the 1924 Olympic schedule by running the 1, 500 m and the 5, 000 m inside an hour, setting new world records for both distances.

The 5, 000 m final started in less than two hours, and Nurmi faced a tough challenge from countryman Ville Ritola, who had already won the 3, 000 m steeplechase and the 10, 000 m. Ritola and Edvin Wide figured that Nurmi must be tired and tried to burn him off by running at world-record pace.

Nurmi struggled to maintain motivation for running, heightened by his rheumatism and Achilles tendon problems.

" However, Nurmi continued running, turning his attention to longer distances.

Nurmi running his only marathon

Details of the case were not released to the press, but the evidence against Nurmi was believed be the sworn statements from German race promoters that Nurmi had received $ 250 – 500 per race when running in Germany in autumn 1931.

Nurmi refused to turn professional, and continued running as amateur in Finland.

Less than three weeks later, Nurmi retired from running with a 10, 000 m victory in Viipuri on 16 September 1934.

Nurmi felt that he got too much credit as an athlete and too little as a businessman, but his interest in running never died.

Nurmi broke 22 official world records on distances between 1, 500 m and 20 km ; a record in running.

Nurmi introduced the " even pace " strategy to running, pacing himself with a stopwatch and spreading his energy uniformly over the race.

" Nurmi was considered a pioneer also in regards to training ; he developed a systematic all-year-round training program that included both long-distance work and interval running.

Peter Lovesey wrote in The Kings of Distance: A Study of Five Great Runners that Nurmi " accelerated the progress of world records ; developed and actually came to personify the analytic approach to running ; and he was a profound influence not only in Finland, but throughout the world of athletics.

" Cordner Nelson, founder of Track & Field News, credited Nurmi for popularizing running as a spectator sport: " His imprint on the track world was greater than any man ’ s before or after.

Finnish officials had selected Ritola for the race as Nurmi was already running in five other distance events.

* Paavo Nurmi – four-time Olympic gold medalist and undefeated throughout his 19-year career in cross country running

* Paavo Nurmi ( Finland ) breaks the world record by running a time of 3: 52. 6 at Helsinki.

It was designed for the downtrodden Swedish cross country running teams that had been beaten throughout the 1920s by Paavo Nurmi and the Finns.