The 1924 Paris Olympics were the pinnacle of Paavo Nurmi's career. In just six days, he won an incredible five gold medals! Paavo won gold in the 1500 meters, 5000 meters, individual cross-country, and as part of the team in the 3000 meters and cross-country. His double victory in the 1500 and 5000 meters on the same day was particularly legendary. Nurmi won the 1500 meters with an Olympic record of 3:53.6 and, about an hour later, ran to victory in the 5000 meters with a time of 14:31.2. A few days later, he also won the 10.7-kilometer cross-country race in difficult conditions, where only 15 of the 38 starters made it to the finish line.
Paavo Nurmi in Paris in 1924. (Photo: Wikipedia)
Five athletics golds in a single Olympic Games remains a record. In Paris in 1924, Nurmi effectively became one of the first true sports superstars of Finland and the entire world.
Team Finland 1924 (Photo: Finnish Heritage Agency)
The story of the borrowed watch
Even back then, Paavo Nurmi planned his race splits to the second and monitored them using a stopwatch during training and competition. In Paris, as an exception, Paavo had a borrowed watch with him, because he had a habit of throwing his stopwatch to the side of the track before the final lap, and he was worried about the durability of his own gold timepiece.
The large dial shows seconds and the small one minutes (photo: TAHTO/Sports Museum)
Finnish baseball legend Lauri ”Tahko” Pihkala lent his wife Rauni’s steel-cased Minerva watch to Nurmi for the Paris races. After the games, Nurmi returned the watch to Tahko, who later had the text “This watch was held by P. Nurmi when running 1500, 5000 and 3000 m at the Olympic Games 1924.” engraved on it.
Backside engraving: THIS WATCH WAS HELD BY PAAVO NURMI WHEN RUNNING 1,500, 5000 AND 3000 M AT OLYMPIC GAMES 1924. (photo: TAHTO/Sports Museum)
Decades later, Pihkala was in a car accident in Helsinki, and the famous watch was left behind at the accident scene in a broken state. A passerby delivered the watch to Nurmi; based on the engraving, Nurmi, who was already working as a businessman, had the watch repaired in Switzerland. Nurmi later delivered the repaired watch to Pihkala, who was still recovering from his injuries in the hospital. The watch was donated to the Sports Museum’s collections in 1974. In addition to the stopwatch, the collections also include two Olympic diplomas and a sports outfit from Paavo Nurmi’s Paris competition.
A limited-edition replica series of 300 pieces was made of the watch, apparently in the 90s. The replica comes with a blue-and-white ribbon and a wooden storage box.
History of Minerva
The Minerva brand name was registered in 1887 in Villeret, Switzerland, to the company Robert Frères Villeret, founded by Charles and Hyppolite Robert in 1858. In-house watch production began in 1895, and the manufacturing of chronograph movements started in 1908. As early as 1916, Minerva stopwatches were capable of 1/100th-of-a-second accuracy.
Minerva stopwatch advertisement from the 1930s
In the 1920s, Minerva stopwatches were used by athletes and competitors in motor sports and track and field. Naturally, professionals in various fields and pilots also used the stopwatches as tools. Minerva watches were most likely imported to Finland by Ajantieto Oy in Helsinki.
Minerva The Unveiled Crownless (photo: Montblanc)
In 2007, Minerva became part of the Richemont-owned watch brand Montblanc. The Heritage collection released in the 2020s includes a few Minerva watches whose design follows the style of the Minerva watches from the 40s and 50s. At the time of writing this blog, Montblanc still offers a small selection of watch models from the Minerva collection.
You can read more about the history of Minerva watches here.