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Nurmi struggled to maintain motivation for running, heightened by his rheumatism and Achilles tendon problems.
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Nurmi and for
Criswell's undead consort, the sexy Black Ghoul, was written for Maila Nurmi, a. k. a. Vampira, but was instead played by Fawn Silver, who wore a black bouffant wig.
At his peak, Nurmi was undefeated at distances from 800 m upwards for 121 races.
Born into a worker family, Nurmi left school at the age of 12 to provide for his family.
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.
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, a talented student, left school to work as an errand boy for a bakery.
Nurmi soon began setting personal bests and got close for the Olympic selection.
Previously known for his blistering pace on the first few laps, Nurmi started to carry a stopwatch and spread his efforts more uniformly over the distance.
In 1922, he broke the world records for the 2, 000 m, the 3, 000 m and the 5, 000 m. A year later, Nurmi added the records for the 1, 500 m and the mile.
After excelling in mathematics, Nurmi graduated as an engineer in 1923 and returned home to prepare for the upcoming Olympic Games.
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.
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.
After returning to Finland, Nurmi set a 10, 000 m world record that would last for almost 13 years.
Nurmi defeated Joie Ray and Lloyd Hahn to win the mile and Ritola to win the 5, 000 m, again setting new world records for both distances.
Nurmi broke ten more indoor world records in regular events and set several new best times for rarer distances.
In 1926, Nurmi broke Wide's world record for the 3, 000 m in Berlin and then improved the record in Stockholm, despite Nils Eklöf repeatedly trying to slow his pace down in an effort to aid Wide.
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.
Before the 5, 000 m final, Nurmi injured himself in his qualifying heat for the 3, 000 m steeplechase.
Nurmi was seven seconds slower than in his world record run in 1925, and it was immediately speculated if the mile had become too short a distance for him.
In July 1931, Nurmi showed he still had pace for the shorter distances by beating Lauri Lehtinen, Lauri Virtanen and Volmari Iso-Hollo, and breaking the world record on the now-rare two miles.
Nurmi and running
Nurmi trained primarily by doing cross country running in the summers and cross country skiing in the winters.
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.
" 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 lived to see the renaissance of Finnish running in the 1970s, led by athletes such as the 1972 Olympic gold medalists Lasse Virén and Pekka Vasala.
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.
Nurmi and by
In a controversial case that strained Finland – Sweden relations and sparked an inter-IAAF battle, Nurmi was suspended before the 1932 Games by an IAAF council that questioned his amateur status.
The young Nurmi and his friends were inspired by the English long-distance runner Alfred Shrubb.
At the age of 15, Nurmi rekindled his interest in athletics after being inspired by the performances of Hannes Kolehmainen, who was said to " have run Finland onto the map of the world " at the 1912 Summer Olympics.
He took his first medal 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.
His only challenger, Ray Watson of the United States, gave up before the last lap and Nurmi was able to slow down and coast to victory ahead of Willy Schärer, Henry Stallard and Douglas Lowe, still breaking the Olympic record by three seconds.
Nurmi exhibited only slight signs of exhaustion after beating Ritola to the win by nearly a minute and a half.
At the 1928 Olympic trials, Nurmi was left third in the 1, 500 m by eventual gold and bronze medalists Harri Larva and Eino Purje, and he decided to concentrate on the longer distances.
Lucien Duquesne stopped to help him up, and Nurmi thanked the Frenchman by pacing him past the field and offered him the heat win, which Duquesne gracefully refused.
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.
The statements were produced by Karl Ritter von Halt after Edström had sent him increasingly threatening letters, warning that if evidence against Nurmi is not provided, he " will unfortunately have to take stringent action against the German Athletics Association.
Although he had been diagnosed with a pulled Achilles tendon two weeks earlier, Nurmi stated he would have won the event by five minutes.
The relief drive, directed by former president Herbert Hoover, included a coast-to-coast tour by Nurmi and Mäki.
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.
Nurmi ran for the last time on 18 February 1966 at the Madison Square Garden, invited by the New York Athletic Club.
0.150 seconds.