Ville Kyrönen

Ville Kyrönen
Full name	Wilhelm Kyrönen
nation	Grand Duchy of Finland (until 1918) Finland (from 1918)
birthday	January 14, 1891
place of birth	Nilsiä ,  Finland
size	165 cm
Weight	55 kg
date of death	May 24, 1959
Place of death	New York ,  United States
Career
discipline	Long distance running ; Cross-country run
Best performance	Marathon: 2:34:55 h
society	Milrose AC
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 1 × 0 ×
Olympic games silver Stockholm 1912 Cross-country team

Ville Kyrönen (actually Wilhelm Kyrönen , born January 14, 1891 in Nilsiä (now part of Kuopio , Finland ), † May 24, 1959 in New York ) was a Finnish long-distance and cross-country runner .

Ville Kyrönen began his active sports career in cross-country skiing. For the Finnish team he took part in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm . In the cross-country race, a race over 8 kilometers, he finished 7th in the individual standings, making him fourth-best of eight Finns who competed. In the team competition, the Finnish team won the silver medal. Since only the first three placements were taken into account in the evaluation ( Hannes Kolehmainen was first, Jalmari Eskola fourth and Albin Stenroos sixth), Kyrönen did not appear in the final bill, but was awarded a silver medal like his other teammates. The team of Sweden became Olympic champions.

After the Stockholm Games, Kyrönen, like Hannes Kolehmainen among others, went to the United States to be able to practice his sport there more professionally. His name was anglicized into Willie Kyronen . In 1914 he was US champion over 5 miles, in 1917 over 10 miles, and in 1916 in cross country. In the USA he began to achieve his first successes in marathon running. In 1914 he was sixth in 1914 , and in 1916 he even managed to place second. That year he also won the Brockton and Yonkers marathons .

In 1920 Ville Kyrönen took part in a marathon in New York, which also served as a qualification for the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp . His compatriots Hannes Kolehmainen and Juho Tuomikoski also took part. Kyrönen crossed the finish line in sixth place overall and was the best Finn. Nevertheless, he did not start in Antwerp. Kolehmainen became Olympic champion in Antwerp.

In the following years, Kyrönen was able to come up with successes in marathons. After 7th place in 1921 and 5th place in Boston in 1922 , he also appeared again in Europe and won in Helsinki in 1923 and in Hyvinkää in 1924 . Through these achievements, he had qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris , where he also started this time. However, he could not finish the run and, like Hannes Kolehmainen, had to give up.

In the Olympic year Kyrönen was able to win the Vyborg marathon . Back in the USA, he took part in the Boston Marathon again. In 1925 he reached 6th place, 3rd place in 1929, 2nd place in 1930 and 3rd place again in 1932. Kyrönen qualified for the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles . At the age of 41 he took part in the Olympic Games for the third time, 20 years after his Olympic debut in Stockholm in 1912. But as in Paris eight years earlier, he could not finish the run. In 1933 he took part in the Boston Marathon for the last time and finished 5th.

Ville Kyrönen spent the rest of his life in the USA after his active career. He died on May 24, 1959 in New York.

Web links

• Ville Kyrönen in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of results on GBAthtletics