Veikko Karvonen

Career Karvonen was born in Sakkola, a small Karelian town that then belonged to Finland but was invaded by the Soviet Union during World War II. Karvonen was evacuated to Saarijärvi, where he started his running career training with Jussi Kurikkala. He ran his first marathon in autumn 1949 in Turku with the promising result of 2:45:07.

Karvonen participated in the 1950 European Championships in Brussels. He finished second in the marathon 32 seconds after the winner Jack Holden. In the Track & Field News annual world ranking he was the second best marathon runner of 1950, after Holden.

In 1951 Karvonen ran three marathons and won all of them. In the Finnish Championship marathon in July his winning time was 2:28:46. In August in the Nordic Championship marathon he ran 2:28:07. In September he won the Enschede Marathon by over six minutes' margin before Tom Richards, Karvonen's winning time was 2:29:02. Karvonen was still sixth at the 1958 European Championships with his all-time third best time, 2:22:45, second at the 1958 Fukuoka Marathon, and fourth at the 1959 Boston Marathon. During his career Karvonen ran a total of 35 marathons and won 15 of them.