Ville Ritola

Vilho "Ville" Eino Ritola, born on 18 January 1896 in Peraseinajoki in western Finland, was a Finnish long-distance runner and one of the "Flying Finns". He was the fourteenth child of a farming family and emigrated to the United States in 1913, working as a carpenter and starting systematic training only in 1919 at the Finnish-American Athletic Club. At the 1924 Paris Olympics he won four gold and two silver medals across eight consecutive days of distance racing, which is still the most medals any athlete has taken in a single Olympic athletics programme, and at Amsterdam in 1928 he added the 5,000 metres gold and a silver in the 10,000 metres behind Paavo Nurmi. His career total was five Olympic gold medals and three silver medals. He retired soon after 1928, returned to construction work, took United States citizenship in 1937 and moved back to Helsinki in 1971, where he died aged 86.