Paavo Nurmi (born June 13, 1897, Turku, Finland—died October 2, 1973, Helsinki) was a Finnish track athlete who dominated long-distance running in the 1920s, capturing nine gold medals in three Olympic Games (1920, 1924, and 1928) as well as three silvers. For eight years (1923–31) he held the world record for the mile run: 4 min 10.4 sec. During his career he established 25 world records at various distances.
Along with numerous other Finns (collectively nicknamed the “Flying Finns”) who gained Olympic honors from 1920, Nurmi was inspired by his countryman Hannes Kolehmainen, who won three long-distance races at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm. In training and in races, Nurmi carried a stopwatch so that he could precisely regulate his pace. At the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium, he won the 10,000-meter run and the 10,000-meter cross-country race; at the 1928 Amsterdam Games he took another gold medal in the 10,000-meter run. Most spectacular were his feats at the 1924 Paris Games. In little more than one hour on July 10, an extremely hot day, he set Olympic records in the 1,500-meter and 5,000-meter runs. Two days later, again in oppressive heat, he repeated his 1920 triumph in the 10,000-meter cross-country race (an event discontinued after 1924), and the following day he finished first in an unofficial 3,000-meter team race that was won by Finland (no medals were awarded).
On August 23, 1923, in Stockholm, Nurmi consulted his stopwatch as he set his mile record, running each of the first three quarters (440 yards) in exactly 63 seconds and then the final quarter in 61.4 seconds. Despite his success, his method of evenly paced quarters was not widely imitated. In early 1925 he made a successful tour of the United States, appearing in a string of track meets. In 1928 he set a world record for the one-hour run: 19,210 meters (11 miles 1,648 yards). In 1932, shortly before the Olympic Games, he lost his international amateur status, though he continued to race in Finland until 1934.
Along with Kolehmainen, Nurmi had the honor of lighting the Olympic flame to open the 1952 Games in Helsinki. Nurmi was depicted on national currency, the 10 markkaa banknote, from 1986 until 2002, when Finland adopted the euro.