Kurt Wires
Kurt Oskar Wires , actually Kurt Virtanen , (born April 28, 1919 in Helsinki , † February 22, 1992 in Espoo ) was a Finnish canoeist and Olympic champion .
At the Olympic Games in London in 1948 , the Swede Gert Fredriksson won over 10,000 meters in a single kayak. Kurt Wires took second place, half a minute behind. Wires collapsed from exhaustion at the finish and capsized. The fourth-placed Dane Knud Ditlevsen kept the Finn afloat until Wires was recovered by a referee boat.
At the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952 , Wires competed in a two-person kayak with Yrjö Hietanen . The two Finns won over 10,000 meters with a 0.4 second lead over the Swedish defending champions Gunnar Åkerlund and Hans Wetterström . The next day Wires and Hietanen drove over 1000 meters at the same time as the Swedish world champions Lars Glassér and Ingemar Hedberg across the finish line, the Finns won gold after evaluating the finish photo.
literature
- Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. The Chronicle II. London 1948 - Tokyo 1964. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-328-00740-7 .
Web links
- Kurt Wires in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wires, Kurt |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kurt Virtanen |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Finnish canoeist and Olympic champion |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 28, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Helsinki |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 22, 1992 |
| Place of death | Espoo |