Word: nurmi
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Mile. Last week, on the indoor track of Madison Square Garden, Manhattan, Paavo Nurmi of Finland made his first appearance in the U. S. His first event was a mile race. Nurmi, a thin, blond man, wore a jersey of robin's egg blue, trunks of black. In his right hand, he carried the little watch by which he timed his stride. He disdained, at the start, the conventional crouch. Ray (Illinois A. C.) and Hahn (Boston A. A.) both got away from the pistol before him. Through the first lap, while his competitors jostled for position, Nurmi kept...
...hour intervened before the next race. Nurmi, when he had rubbed and showered, strolled among the trainers, timers and rubbers. Blandly, in disregard of their amazed murmurs, he ate a large red apple...
...first", continued Mikkola, "way back in 1917 when he was only 20 years old, and it was much colder than today, even", he continued. "We have no board tracks, no indoor running in Finland and poor Nurmi was racing over a trail packed with snow. Of course, usually we do not run at all during the long winter, and Nurmi always walked 20 to 30 kilometers every day to keep in training...
...Nurmi had a small shed of his own in which he put a stove with stones, heated red hot, on top. He used to go in and take his bath. He'd get up on a shelf above the stove and pour water onto the stones. After he got well steamed up he would take a--what is it you say?--a 'bouquet' of sticks and flay himself...
Coach Mikkola expressed a hope that Nurmi would stay in this country till spring, but he denied that he had any information from Nurmi himself. "I am sure that if Paavo does stay till spring he will come to Harvard, especially since there is a Finnish bathhouse in Quincy...