Kalle Nieminen

Initially a stonemason by trade, Kalle Nieminen did not begin competing in distance races until he was 25-years-old. Two years later, he set the Finnish national 10,000 metres record at 37:44.6, and then took up the marathon. Nieminen won the first Finnish race over a marathon-type distance in 1907, when he defeated a very young Hannes Kolehmainen, who finished third. On 16 September 1906, Nieminen ran 3-01:06 for 40.2 km to win a race from Helsinki to Tikkurila. He made his first international appearance in 1907 and one year later represented his country in the marathon at the 1908 London Olympics, where he placed 10th in a field of 55 starters.

After one more year of amateur racing, he moved to the United States in late 1909 to race professionally, during the marathon craze of the 1910s. His first professional race was on 29 November 1910 when he and Willie Kolehmainen, Hannes’ brother, finished third in a two-man marathon relay at Madison Square Garden in New York. In October 1912, Nieminen finished third in a marathon in 2-43:10 at the Eastern Motordome in the Vailsburg section of Newark, New Jersey, a race won by Willie Kolehmainen.

Nieminen coached distance running at Columbia University for a time and became an American citizen in the 1910s while living in New York. He settled in Vermont where he worked, at various times, as a carpenter, masseur, and fox farmer. After the 1920s, he lost contact with his native country and was declared dead in absentia in 1971. Later research uncovered that he died in New York in 1943.

Personal Best: Mar – 2-40:50s (1908).