Finnish Olympic Trials

The Clandestine Marathon Trials

The 1924 Olympic Trials commenced after mid-May in Hyvinkää with a 40,200-metre ordeal masquerading as a marathon. The proceedings were dominated by a transatlantic reinforcement  Ville Kyrönen, a man of proven road-running pedigree, and the 35-year-old Albin Stenroos, who had rediscovered his appetite for swallowing kilometres the previous autumn.

After the midway point, Kyrönen bolted, eventually carving out a lead of over ninety seconds. Stenroos, however, was operating under strict instructions from the coaching hierarchy to throttle back; apparently, they were loath to let the rest of the world get wind of his ironclad Olympic condition. Hannes Kolehmainen, the decorated veteran, conspicuously avoided the starting line due to foot ailments, though he was granted his Olympic berth on past merits without so much as a murmur of dissent.

A Stampede at Eläintarha

The selection circus moved to Helsinki’s Eläintarha field on 24–25 May. The public descended upon the stands in droves – some ten thousand pairs of eyes per day, a gate that effectively shattered all previous Finnish attendance records. A numbered seat would set a man back 40 marks, roughly a day’s wages for a labourer in the mid-twenties, while the less pecunious could languish in the standing area for a mere tenner.

The marketing of the event was tinged with a certain theatrical dishonesty. Advertisements practically guaranteed the first-ever duel between Paavo Nurmi and Ville Ritola who was back to Finland from America. Nurmi, despite nursing a mutinous knee all spring, had been entered into every distance from 1500 upwards, though precisely which races he would actually deign to finish remained a mystery.

In an era devoid of television or the internet, the news-hungry were at the mercy of the printing press. In Turku, the latest results were nailed into a glass display case on the wall of the Turun Sanomat offices, allowing the most feverish enthusiasts to gorge on the data without waiting for the morning edition.

The Duel That Wasn't

The world’s two finest harriers managed to skirt around one another throughout the trials. On Saturday, Nurmi dispatched the 1500 in a solitary masterclass, crossing the line in 4:00.5 with such ease he might as well have been wiggling his toes in delight. He then retreated to the stands, a stony-faced sentinel, to scrutinise Ritola’s debut on Finnish soil.

The "Wolf of Peräseinäjoki" cantered to victory in the 5000 in 14:47.0 – the briskest five-kilometre stint ever seen in the Fatherland and a scant ten seconds off Nurmi’s world record. The reporter for Uusi Suomi, clearly moved to a state of poetic delirium, likened Ritola’s gait to a moose "sipping the spring air as it streaks across a vast meadow."

Ritola’s Lethal Cadence

The two men continued their game of hide-and-seek on the second day. Nurmi sauntered out to collect the trophy for the 3000, while Ritola set off on the 10,000 with a grimace that could only be described as murderous. A torrential downpour crept over Eläintarha, but rather than dampening the pace, it seemed to act as a lubricant.

The spectators craned their necks and sighed in disbelief at the frantic tempo. Ritola reached the halfway mark in 15:14 and maintained a relentlessly fatal velocity until the end. The result: a new World Record of 30:35.4.

Atmosphere was not in short supply. Once the record was confirmed, the Navy Band, hired to provide a melodic veneer to the struggle, began to bellow through their brass with patriotic fervour. Simultaneously, the crowd snapped to their feet, clapping their heels together in a spontaneous display of disciplined joy.

Sports leader and journalist Tahko Pihkala, writing in a Finnish sports journal, was moved to describe the New York carpenter’s style:

"His gait is that of a wolf—tireless, terrifyingly elastic, and accelerating toward the kill. Woe betide any man who cannot shake him early, for the Wolf will surely claim those who lack the surplus energy to sprint while already at death's door."

The Veterans' Auditions

The 400 hurdles were piloted to victory in a modest 58.0 by Martti Jukola, a man destined to become the founding father of Finnish sports broadcasting. Erik Wilén, the eventual silver-medallist in Paris with a far more robust clocking, contented himself with scorching through the 200 and 400 flat.

Meanwhile, Urho Kekkonen, a 23-year-old from Kajaani who had yet to acquire the crusty gravitas of the old guard, scissored his way over the high-jump bar at 1.80 (5-11). Though the gold medal was duly thrust into his palm, the selection committee remained stubbornly unimpressed; apparently, missing 1.85 (6-0¾) by a whisker is a crime for which there is no immediate absolution. The runner-up spot was snared by Arvo Tigerstedt, known to posterity as "Tiikeri," the future caricaturist for Helsingin Sanomat who would spend the rest of his career skewering athletes with his pen instead of his spikes.

In the triple jump, Väinö Rainio bounded to 14.83 (48-7¾), effectively nailing down his ticket to France. The feat was made all the more remarkable by the fact that the Turku lad, who had recently defected from the Workers' Sports Federation to the "bourgeois" union for pragmatic reasons. This represented the only back door into de Coubertin’s Olympic circus, given the workers federation’s ideological allergy to the whole affair.  Rainio managed to launch himself from a full fifteen centimetres behind the board. The seasoned Vilho Tuulos, evidently husbanding his joints for the main event, flopped to a pedestrian 14.28 (46-10¼), knowing full well his place on the boat was already set in stone.

The shot put circle bore witness once more to the "Beast of Peräpohjola," Ville Pörhölä, bellowing his way to a 14.59 (47-10¼) victory – a scant thirty centimetres shy of his personal best. He departs for France to sentinel his Olympic title. Hannes Torpo unleashed a winning discus throw of 44.77 (146-10), leaving the venerable Elmer Niklander to shamble into second place. Both, however, are now busy stuffing their valises for the Parisian expedition.

In the javelin, Yrjö Ekqvist managed to out-spear the defending Olympic champion Jonni Myyrä, who had spent his recent "gap years" in a state of relaxed semi-retirement. To discuss the actual distances achieved would be an exercise in futility; a ferocious gale was sweeping across Eläintarha, whistling through the stands and almost sending the sticks skittering off into whatever corner of the field the wind deemed appropriate.

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