page_title: Ville Ritola
section_title: Childhood and emigration to the United States
hierarchical_section_title: Ville Ritola / Childhood and emigration to the United States
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Sport. Olympische Spelen 1928 Amsterdam, Nederland&#160;: Opname uit de finale van de 10.000 meter hardlopen. Aan kop Ville Ritola, gevolgd door Paavo Nurmi, die het goud pakte.
context_page_description: Vilho "Ville" Eino Ritola was a Finnish long-distance runner. Known as one of the "Flying Finns", he won five Olympic gold medals and three Olympic silver medals in the 1920s. He holds the record of winning most athletics medals at a single Games – four golds and two silvers in Paris 1924 - and ranks second in terms of most athletics gold medals at a single Games.
context_section_description: Ritola's parents were farmers in western Finland near Seinäjoki. He was born in Peräseinäjoki, Finland. He was the 14th child in his family and had altogether 19 siblings, five of whom died in infancy. Six of the children were from his father's first marriage, 14 from the second, including Ville.
  In 1913 he followed seven of his siblings and emigrated to the United States to work as a carpenter. There he started training in 1919 when he was already 23 years old. Later he referred many times to this late start of his sports career, and how it put him at a disadvantage compared to his rivals, especially the more famous of the Flying Finns, Paavo Nurmi, who started systematic training in his teens. In 1919 he joined the Finnish-American Athletic Club and trained together with Hannes Kolehmainen, who had moved to the United States after the 1912 Summer Olympics. In spring 1919 he took part in his first competition, a New York street race, and finished 33rd among 700 competitors. It was only after this that he started to train systematically.
  Kolehmainen tried to convince the young Ritola to join the Finnish 1920 Summer Olympics team, but Ritola stated that he was not ready yet. He had also just married Selma née Aaltonen. In 1921 he started to compete systematically, and in 1922 he won his first AAU Championship gold medals. The same year he came second in the Boston Marathon.
caption: Ritola leads Nurmi in the 1928 Olympic 10000 m race
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