Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘Stockholm’

Sep 21

Stockholm Olympic Stadium
3 Comments

Stockholm Olympic Stadium

On the eve of Jubilee Marathon Stockholm, I took a guided tour of the Stockholm Olympic Stadium (“Stadion”). From outside, the facade gives heavy air – clean simple lines and sharp angles created by dark red brick buildings. Inside, the gothic castle-like stadium is a bit soften by the oval and the field. While the track and field is well maintained, little has changed to the buildings themselves since 1912, the year Stockholm hosted the fifth modern summer Olympic Games. To this day, it is the oldest Olympic stadium still in use today.

Stockholm Olympic Stadium

100 years. It only takes a couple of seconds to verbalize it but that’s an impressive amount of time. During the 100 years, lots have changed to marathon as a sport, from the distances run (42.195km today vs. 40.075km then) and to the speed the runners capture the distance and to the size of participation worldwide. But the next day, we were to repeat the marathon in the same manner and fashion as it was done 100 years ago. A Swedish runner was going to repeat the distance in exactly the same time of the Olympic winner. The next day, we were to enter Stadion receiving cheers from the spectators in the stand and to walk half the oval to the start line, reminiscent of what Stadion saw 100 years ago. How fun would that be!

1912 Stockholm Olympics Opening Ceremony

Stadion used to have a second level between the two towers. The spot I was standing (above photo) had the second level over me as seen in the black and white photo. (Source: Wikipedia). The period photo also indicates the intimate size of the Games, 2,408 competitors, compared to over 11,000 for the London Games this year. Back in the day, Olympic Games included track and field events that are very different from today’s. The ‘Sunshine Olympics’ of 1912 included tag of war, standing high-jump and standing broad-jump, among others. Other tidbits from the Sunshine Olympics include the introduction of an automatic timing system for the track and field events, Japanese marathoner, Kanakuri Shizo, went missing during the competition and for 50 years, only death (Francisco Lázaro of Portugal) during the modern Olympic marathon, and the world record of 83 world records in any Olympic Games.

Stockholm Olympic StadiumStadion is located in the north-east section of the city of Stockholm, along Valhallavägen. It is closed for the public, though one can enter Stadion for concert, football and other events. Diamond League had a track and field competition in 2011. The way Stadion is maintained, I am certain this venue will be here for another 100 years and continues to be a historical landmark of Stockholm and Sweden.

Jul 23

Djurgården running path

Morning Run in Stockholm

Having arrived here in Stockholm the day before, with the nine-hour time difference and the restless day light, I woke up at 4:30 am and could not go back to sleep. This presented myself with a perfect opportunity to go for a morning run in this favorite city of mine. The cool morning air helped me forget yesterday’s long flight and cleared my tired head. My legs recovered from the track meet a few days ago and were ready to take some new beating for the Jubilee Marathon in just over a week.

During my previous visit to Stockholm, I had gone for a run. But I was staying at a different place then and it was a snowing afternoon, already dark after 4pm. So, this was almost a new experience. I left Hotel Rival (ABBA’s Benny is the owner, though I never saw him there) in Södermalm and head north towards Djurgården via Gamla Stan and Strandvägen. With the marathon less than two weeks, I no longer needed to put in hard miles. Besides, my focus has been track in the past two months, so I was not going to race the marathon, anyway. The plan was to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the event. Running through beautiful tourists spots, such as Gamla Stan, in the early morning, gave a slightly different look and my heart rate increased quickly. After the stretch of tree-lined walk way along Strandvägen, I ran into wooded area just north of Djurgården, across Djurgårdsbrunnsviken.

Djurgården running pathThere were a few runners and walkers, but other than that, it was very quiet. The clean and pristine running path was so refreshing that I kept on running instead of turning back. There were also big nice-looking houses along this path. Since my Verizon iPhone did not have any coverage in Sweden, I could not use RunKeeper, nor could I rely on GPS map to see where I was going. And that’s how I got lost, despite the availability of area maps along the path. I wasn’t concerned too much, though. I could always go back the way I came, and that’s what I ended up doing when I came to a dead end at a shore.

Stockholm morning runSo I stopped and rested a little bit with the view of the Baltic Sea inlet and Stockholm archipelago in a distance. It was so beautiful, quiet and peaceful. After a few moments, I set off and ran back the way I came. On the way back to the hotel, I wanted to stop by at the Olympic Stadium where the marathon will start. After a couple of trials and errors of re-orienting myself and finally asking a runner for directions, I managed to get to the southern end of Karlavägen and found the way to the Olympic Stadium.

Jubilee Marathon bannerI wanted to go inside the stadium and run some striders if possible, but all the gates were locked. Oh well… After circling around the stadium, I decided to run back to the hotel. I was getting hungry and feeling fatigued. I cut across Karlsvägen to Stureplan and ran south on Birger Jarlsgatan, which is sort of like Champs-Élysées or the Fifth Avenue of Stockholm, at least in my opinion. The street was getting busier with tourists by the time I was heading back to the hotel. By the time I came back to the hotel, I ran 11 miles and that was more than I wanted to run.

I was trying to decided if Stockholm was runner-friendly city or not. Surely, the big streets, such as Karlasvägen, Valhallavägen, and Strandvägen have a very nice path for runners and strollers. While most city streets have a bike lane and people ride bikes quite a bit, even in the winter with snow on the ground, I did not see many people running on the city streets. I wanted to explore the city by running again and get a better sense to come to a decision, but this was the only time I found time to run. So the question still remains, until next visit. I did run one more time in Sweden, apart from the marathon, but that was when I visited up north, Dalarna district, three-hour train ride north of Stockholm. I will write about that run as well.

Mar 27

1 Comment

The Slowest and Longest Marathon in History

Shiso KanaguriI first learned about this when soundsandfuries commented on my other post Stockholm Calling and introduced me to the story of Shiso Kanaguri. Having found it interesting, I did further research online and found his life fascinating. The most interesting story of his life is the fact he went ‘missing’ during the 1912 Olympic marathon competition. He was one of the favorites to win the competition; however, the running condition of the day – sunny at 40C – took a big toll on him and he could not finish the race. Without reporting to the Swedish Olympic Committee of DNF, he just went home, to Japan! His status with the Olympics, therefore, remained DNF and ‘missing’ until the Swedish Olympic Committee invited him back and finish the marathon in 1967 for the 55th anniversary of the Stockholm Olympics. When he finally finished the marathon (he just ran one lap around the Stockholm Olympic Stadium at the age of 75), it was announced “Kanaguri of Japan finishing in time of 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds. This concludes all the scheduled events of the Stockholm Games of the 5th Olympiad.”*1 This is the slowest and longest marathon time in history! If this sounds interesting to you, read on.

1912 Stockholm Olympic Opening CeremonyNot only a three-time Olympian representing Japan, Kanaguri was a great runner, teacher and pioneer, often regarded as ‘father of marathon’ in Japan for his performance and his contribution to running community back then. Before the Stockholm Olympics, he broke world record in marathon three times. In Stockholm, he was one of the two competitors (the other was Yahiko Mishima, competing in 100m, 200m and 400m) who participated and represented Japan for the first time in the Olympic Games. On the day of marathon competition, there were 68 runners, out of which 34 runners went DNF due to the scorching heat. Another one of those who did not finish was Portugal’s Francisco Lázaro who died the following day from heat exhaustion and dehydration. Till today, Lázaro is the only athlete who died during the modern Olympics event since 1896.*2

Running shoes in 1912Back to Kanaguri. He must not have been in his perfect form when he started to run. It had taken him 20 days to get to Stockholm from Japan. Once getting there, he had trouble sleeping due to the long sun light in July. There was no rice to eat. And then the heat. At a 26.7km point in Sollentuna, he could no longer run and passed out. This is where the story gets strange. His story is that he passed out and did not wake up until the next morning. A Swedish family cared him over night, and he was able to go home next day to Japan. The other story is that he was too tired to run and joined the family for a tea and snack in their garden. After the friendly hospitality, he decided not to finish the marathon and went home. How bizarre is that? Anyway, that’s how his first Olympic went. By the way, the photo on the left is a pair of shoes he wore in the 1912 Olympics. They look so minimalist! He was way ahead of his time.

After he returned from Stockholm, he competed in 1920 Antwerp and 1924 Paris Olympics (1916 Berlin Olympics was cancelled due to the World War I) but never performed to his full potential. However, he was pioneer in Japan, introducing high altitude training and promoting women’s participation in athletics. He was also passionate in coaching the next generation of athletes and was instrumental in founding Hakone Ekiden, which is now a very popular annual collegiate relay over 217.9km with 10 runners (used to be 8 runners). While busy with all this pioneering work and as an educator, he kept running. He ran from the northern tip to the southern tip of Japan, and by the time he retired, he had run 250,000km. If that distance is hard to digest, it translates to six and a quarter times around the globe.*3

He died in 1983 at the age of 93. He regretted that he had not finished the marathon in Stockholm. But he joked when he was asked how he felt about finally finishing the marathon in Stockholm – “It’s been a long journey. Since then, I’ve had five grandchildren!”*4

In this 100th anniversary year of 1912 Stockholm Olympics, you might hear his great story again somewhere. Ah, what a life of a runner!

*1 – Tamana City Official Web Site

*2 – Wikipedia article

*3 – Tamana City Official Web Site

*4 – Wikipedia article

All photos from Tamana City Official Web Site

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,845 other followers

%d bloggers like this: