Paavo Johannes Nurmi was a Finnish middle-distance and long-distance runner. He was called the "Flying Finn" or the "Phantom Finn", as he dominated distance running in the 1920s. Nurmi set 22 official world records at distances between 1,500 metres and 20 kilometres, and won nine gold and three silver medals in his 12 events in the Summer Olympic Games. At his peak, Nurmi was undefeated for 121 races at distances from 800 m upwards. Throughout his 14-year career, he remained unbeaten in cross country events and the 10,000 metres.

Nurmi was born in Turku, Finland, to carpenter Johan Fredrik Nurmi and his wife Matilda Wilhelmiina Laine. Nurmi's siblings, Siiri, Saara, Martti and Lahja, were born in 1898, 1902, 1905 and 1908, respectively. In 1903, the Nurmi family moved from Raunistula into a 40-square-meter apartment in central Turku, where Paavo Nurmi would live until 1932. The young Nurmi and his friends were inspired by the English long-distance runner Alfred Shrubb. They regularly ran or walked six kilometres (four miles) to swim in Ruissalo, and back, sometimes twice a day. By the age of eleven, Nurmi ran the 1500 metres in 5:02. Nurmi's father Johan died in 1910 and his sister Lahja a year later. The family struggled financially, renting out their kitchen to another family and living in a single room. Nurmi, a talented student, left school to work as an errand boy for a bakery. Although he stopped running actively, he got plenty of exercise pushing heavy carts up the steep slopes in Turku. He later credited these climbs for strengthening his back and leg muscles.