Olavi Vuorisalo is remembered, among other things, for the world record run from 1957.
Finnish middle distance runner Olavi Vuorisalo has died at the age of 91. The death notice of the running legend was published in Turku Sanomat on Sunday.
The running legend is remembered, among other things, for the historic 1,500 meter world record run in July in Turku in 1957 Olavi Salsolan and Olavi Salonen with. The trio crossed the finish line as one group, but Vuorisalo was considered to have run third with a time of 3:40.3.
The world record was only held by the Finns for a day, because it was held by Czechoslovakia Stanislav Jungwirth already ran a little more than two seconds faster the next day.
In August of the same year, Vuorisalo, on the other hand, became the first Finn to break the four-minute mark for a mile.
Olavi Vuorisalo was Fifth at the European Championships in 1958 and two years later represented Finland at the Rome Olympics. At the SM level, he achieved eight medals. In Finland, Vuorisalo represented Naantali Löyly.
Finnish runners recalled their world record run once to . The program can be heard from the link below from Areena.