Word: finn
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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This time, however, there were no ogling blacks, no steaming coffee, no apples, no diner. What to do? Nurmi's retainers noised his plight about the train. A New York Central brakeman, famed as a heavy eater, sidled up to the famished Finn modestly offered three succulent sandwiches. The engineer gave a bottle of milk, a conductor an apple. Thus was the breach filled. Nurmi left no crumbs. Fed, he stated that he disliked Chicago. He had three grievances: 1) Without notice to him the Coliseum track had been reduced from ten to twelve laps to the mile...
Before Nurmi's race, a rival Finn, Willie Ritola, started from scratch, padded five long miles, four times tapped the field of wearying runners, lowered by eight seconds the world's indoor record. Ritola's time...
...Metres. The track in Madison Square Garden has eleven laps to the mile (approximately 34 laps to the 5,000 metres). Willie Ritola, brother Finn, old rival of Nurmi, took the lead. At his heels came the flying robin's-egg jersey. Lap after lap the two circled, the field after them. Two laps from home Nurmi sprinted, left a gap of 5 yards, widened it to 10, to 15. Gamely Ritola hung on, his face twisted like a mask of torture, but this time Nurmi did not turn to look. Running like a sprinter who, throughout an afternoon...
...defeated Ray and Ritola - his most potent rivals. More than this, he caused it to appear as if these men - both, beyond a doubt, among the world's swiftest runners - were novices and that he alone ran as a good runner should. Thus did this thin blond Finn alter, for those who watched, the standard by which they had been used to measure the speed of human legs...
Mikkola has been given considerable credit for developing the great Finn, but he modestly makes light of his part in turning Nurmi from an ordinary runner into an Olympic champion. He said, "Nurmi owes much to his persistence and our methods of training which brought out his latent abilities. I coached him from 1918 to 1920, and of course last summer at the Olympics, but by that time he could coach himself...