This Day in Track & Field, January 6, Paavo Nurmi defeats Joie Ray, both break WR in indoor mile at the Garden (1925), by Walt Murphy

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by Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service (wmurphy25@aol.com), used with permission

This Day in Track & Field-January 6

1925–Just 6 months after winning 4 gold medals at the 1924 Olympics in Paris (1500, 5000, two in  x-country), the great Paavo Nurmi made his American debut at the Finnish-American  A.C. indoor meet at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The NY Times reported that 9,000 lucky fans crowded into the 8,000-seat capacity arena, with thousands more left frustrated out on the street.

With the crowd in a frenzy, “The Flying Finn” didn’t disappoint, overtaking Joie Ray in the final two laps to win the mile in 4:13.6, breaking Ray’s 6-year old world record of 4:14.6. Ray, perhaps a bit past his prime, gave the crowd a thrill by opening a 5-yard lead on Nurmi late in the race, but he was no match for the Finn’s withering finish. Ray was also under his old record, running 4:14.0 in 2nd place. Nurmi got credit for a 2nd world record for his 3:56.0 en-route time for 1500-meters.

The fans would have felt they had gotten their money’s worth just to see Nurmi in the mile, but the legend came back 90-minutes later to win the 5,000-meters in 14:44.6 to take down another of Ray’s world records (14:54.6). Nurmi ran away from another Finn, U.S.-trained Ville “Willie” Ritola, the 1924  Olympic Champion at 10,000-meters. Nurmi missed his bid for a 4th world record when his en-route 3-mile time of 14:18.2 fell short of Ritola’s mark of 14:15.8.

Nurmi trained every day during his long voyage from Finland to the U.S. by running on the deck of the SS Celtic. He would go on to win 51 of 55 races in a year-long tour of the U.S.

Nurmi wasn’t the only record breaker at this memorable meet. Loren Murchison established a World Record of 6.0 to win the 50-meters, then got two more records in one race, clocking 22.4 for 220-yards en-route to winning the rarely-run 250-meters (about 1-3/4 laps on the Garden’s 11-lap track) in 29-flat. A 7th world record was set by Penn State’s Alan Helffrich, who established a new mark of 1:05.8 for 500-meters. (From the…