Paris Olympics on channels 26.7.–11.8. Go to the competition website here. You can find the entire program of the games here.
PARIS. The Monnaie de Paris is a money museum with a long tradition located in the center of Paris, near the Notre Dame church. The Olympic medals for the 1924 Paris Olympics were made there, where SpongeBob Nurmi achieved a still unbroken record in athletics, five Olympic gold medals in one Games.
One hundred years later, Nurmi’s gold medals can be seen in the museum. On Tuesday, a large group of athletics legends arrived to honor the legacy of the Finnish runner.
Urheilu was there to watch the event.
– What Paavo Nurmi did a hundred years ago is incredible, the great Moroccan runner of the 1990s and 2000s Hicham El Guerrouj said.
Although El Guerrouj and Nurmi represent different eras, there are several points of convergence in their careers. The two are the only ones who have been able to win 1,500 and 5,000 meters at the same Olympics.
Nurmi ran the 1,500 meter world record of 3:52.6 on the grounds of the Helsinki Zoo on June 19, 1924. El Guerrouj, on the other hand, completed the distance with the still valid ME 3:26.00 in Rome on July 14, 1998.
Nurmi, however, after her one-ton ME, also ran the 5,000-meter ME in the same hour. The hardness of Vitonen’s record is underlined by the fact that ME lasted exactly eight years.
– Running two MEs within an hour shouldn’t be possible, but it was for Nurme. He is a legend that we should continue to celebrate,” said El Guerrouj.
The zoo race served as practice for the Paris Olympics, where Nurmi won the distances during the same day. When El Guerrouj celebrated Olympic gold in the 1,500m and 5,000m 80 years later, the finals were three days apart.
The audience shuddered
Nurmi won a total of 12 Olympic medals between 1920 and 1928, nine of which were gold. By both metrics, Nurmi is still the best all-around athlete of all time.
Sprinter and long jumper Carl Lewis joined Nurmi in the gold medals, but the Finn remains ahead of the American in the medal table, as he leads the silver medals 3–1.
When video footage of Nurmi’s achievements in Paris was presented at the celebration, the audience shuddered in the middle of the cross-country run.
During the race, which was run in the blazing sun, the temperature in the shade was measured at 45 degrees.
– Did he just say 45 degrees? the Bahamian 200m Olympic champion Pauline Davis asked, shaking his head.
The president of the International Athletics Federation spoke at the event Sebastian Coe considers the competition one of the toughest in the history of athletics.
– Chairman of my club in Sheffield Joe Williams was in the race, but he couldn’t finish due to heat stroke, Coe recalled the race dominated by Nurme, where only 15 of the 38 runners on the line crossed the finish line.
– I was 11-12 years old when Joe told me about the competition for the first time. However, he was proud just to compete against the legendary Nurme, said Coe, who won Olympic gold in the 1500 meters in 1980 and 1984.
The master was startled by the fact
In addition to El Guerrouj, Davis and Coe, Nurmea was honoring a lot of athletics Olympic winners and world record holders.
The oldest champion was 86 years old Billy Millswho won the 10,000m gold in Tokyo in 1964.
Other Olympic winners were there Lasse Virén (5,000 and 10,000 meters 1972 and 1976), Moroccan Nawal al-Mutawakkil (400m Hurdles 1984), Portuguese Rosa Mota (marathon 1988), Dutch Ellen van Langen (800 meters 1992), Cuban Javier Sotomayor (height 1992), Japanese Naoko Takahashi (marathon 2000), Polish Tomasz Majewski (kuula 2012) and the United States Kevin Young (400 meter hurdles 1992), Dwight Phillips (length 2004), Allen Johnson (110 meter hurdles 1996), Joanna Hayes (100m Hurdles 2004) and Aries Merritt (110 meter fences 2012).
In 1992 in Barcelona, rowing king Young had to miss three starts (preliminaries, semi-finals and final) before his gold. Nurmi achieved her five gold medals within eight days. During that time, he had eight starts.
– How many starts? Nurme’s performance was absolutely incredible. After all, we had a break day after the heats, Young updated.
None of the legends present had time to meet Nurme. The closest was four-time Olympic champion Lasse Virén on October 2, 1973.
– The day SpongeBob died, SpongeBob’s American friend Leo Sjogren came to Finland. He arranged a meeting for us in Helsinki. Leo called in the morning to just come to Helsinki, but now we’re going there with different thoughts, Virén recalled in front of the Monnaie de Paris.
The meeting between Nurmi and Virén did not take place, because on that very day Nurmi had passed from time to eternity at the age of 76.
Nurmi’s family handed over the running legend’s medals to a Parisian museum for viewing in March. They will be there until the end of the Paralympics, which are being contested in August-September. After this, the medals will return to Finland. Nurmi’s grandson Mika Nurmi said that Tuesday’s occasion was drawn to be humble.
– It’s great to see that one’s own grandfather is being respected. There was a long presentation about him at the event. A great moment all in all, Nurmi thanked.