Day 1: 10000m, JT

Paris Olympic Games in 1924 had 44 participating countries. For the second consecutive time, Germany, declared a war culprit, was left uninvited. Track and field events took place in the first half of July at the Colombes Stadium in the northern part of Paris, where field hockey will be played in the third Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. The stadium could accommodate 45,000 spectators in the stands. Athletics did not particularly interest the French, so, according to some information, the stadium hosted events with partially empty stands.

Stade de Colombes, Paris, France, July 6, 1924

The finals of the Paris Games began with javelin throwing on July 6, 1924, with 35,000 spectators gathered at the Stadium. About 400 of them were lively Finns. As the fifth round began, the situation looked somewhat unfavourable for the Finns, as Sweden's Gunnar Lindström led the competition.

Olympic champion Jonni Myyrä from Finland placed his white gloves on the throwing line to see it better, was able to take a harder and longer run than in previous rounds, and utilized every inch of the runwat. The javelin flew to victory at 62.96m (206-6). 

The Finnish team did not quite reach the fireworks seen in Antwerp, as Yrjö Ekqvist finished fourth, Urho Peltonen seventh, and Paavo Johansson (Jaale) eighth. The global level of results had decreased after the Antwerp Games, and the grass-covered runway in Paris added to the difficulty.

After the Games, Myyrä, a bank manager and businessman from Savitaipale, fled his creditors to America and never returned to his homeland. He remains the only Finn to successfully defend his Olympic javelin gold.

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At the end of the first day of competition at 5:00 PM, the 10,000 metres race took place. Edvin Wide, who had moved from Finland to Sweden, set a brisk pace halfway but slowed down at the seven-kilometre mark, allowing Ville Ritola of Finland to take the lead and run to an easy victory. The "Wolf of Peräseinäjoki" improved his world record to 30:23.2. Wide secured the silver for Sweden. Eero Berg claimed the bronze, and Väinö Sipilä finished fourth. The achievement of having three Tampereen Pyrintö club athletes in the top four was quite commendable. If Paavo Nurmi had run, the top five positions would have gone to those born in Finland.

Why did Nurmi skip the 10,000 metres? No clear explanation has been obtained. Three theories have been suggested:

1 The team management pressured Nurmi to stay out. The 10,000m were run at the beginning of the Games, and there were many events left in the week. The team management was specifically interested in the point competition against the USA; the athletes were not concerned about it.

2 Nurmi wanted to make sports history by winning both the 1500 and 5000 metres on the same afternoon. He didn't want to risk anything and understood the importance of saving his energy by voluntarily skipping the 10,000 metres.

3 Nurmi and Ritola made a secret deal, either on their own initiative or encouraged by the team management: Ritola would win the 10,000 metres, and Nurmi the 5000. This theory is somewhat supported by the fact that Ritola laughed after the 5000 metres, even though he had lost to Nurmi. Nurmi himself denied any collusion.

Nurmi supported the first theory in an interview he gave to Finnish radio on his 70th birthday in 1967. According to him, the team management feared him overexerting himself and hoped he would stay out.

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