Clas Thunberg

Clas Thunberg

Clas Thunberg (1924)
Personal information
Born	(1893-04-05)April 5, 1893 Helsinki, Finland
Died	April 28, 1973(1973-04-28) Helsinki, Finland
Height	167 cm
Weight	67 kg
Sport
Country	Finland
Sport	Speed skating
Medal record Men's speed skating Competitor for  Finland Olympic Games Gold 1924 Chamonix 1500 m Gold 1924 Chamonix 5000 m Gold 1924 Chamonix Allround Gold 1928 St. Moritz 500 m Gold 1928 St. Moritz 1500 m Silver 1924 Chamonix 10000 m Bronze 1924 Chamonix 500 m World Championships Gold 1923 Stockholm Allround Gold 1925 Oslo Allround Gold 1928 Davos Allround Gold 1929 Oslo Allround Gold 1931 Helsinki Allround Silver 1927 Tampere Allround Bronze 1922 Kristiania Allround European Championships Gold 1922 Helsinki Allround Gold 1928 Oslo Allround Gold 1931 Stockholm Allround Gold 1932 Davos Allround Silver 1923 Hamar Allround Silver 1924 Kristiania Allround Silver 1927 Stockholm Allround Silver 1929 Davos Allround

Arnold Clas Robert Thunberg (5 April 1893 – 28 April 1973) was a Finnish speed skater who won five Olympic gold medals – three at the inaugural Winter Olympics held in Chamonix in 1924 (along with a silver and a bronze medal) and two at the 1928 Winter Olympics held in St. Moritz. He was the most successful athlete at both of these Winter Olympics, sharing the honour for 1928 Winter Olympics with Johan Grøttumsbraaten of Norway. No other athlete ever won such a high fraction of all Olympic events at a single Games. He was born and died in Helsinki.^[1]

Short biography

Clas Thunberg began with speed skating rather late, at the age of 18, having led a somewhat rowdy life as a compulsive smoker and drinker before he concentrated fully on his sport. However, from the age of 28 – when he turned up at his first European Allround Championships – and for the following ten years, he was by far the most-winning skater.

Thunberg's greatest strengths were the shortest distances, the 500 through 5000 metres. He never won an international 10000 metre event, although he did win a silver medal on the 10000 metres at the 1924 Winter Olympics – beaten by three seconds by compatriot Julius Skutnabb. Thunberg won three gold medals at the 1924 Olympics – the allround event, the 1500 metres and the 5000 metres. He remains the only person to have won an Olympic gold medal in allround speed skating, as despite the status of allround as the premier skating event, at least up until the 1990s, the event was abolished in the Olympics from 1928 onwards.

Thunberg won five World Allround Championships titles from 1923 to 1931, and also four European Allround Championships titles. He also took two more gold medals at the 1928 Winter Olympics, to end with five, and these two medals made him the oldest Olympic Speed Skating Champion, at the age of 34. However, despite his amazing run, he was occasionally vulnerable on the long distances. If his 500 and 1,500 metre events did not go exactly according to plan, then he could be beaten – as shown in the 1927 season when the 22-year-old Bernt Evensen pipped him to both the World and European title. Evensen, however, could never string together the long run of victories that Thunberg ended up with.

Despite his amazing career record, Thunberg never reached the top of Adelskalender – a statistical invention which ranks skaters according to their personal bests and then converts them into allround performances, using a table. Oscar Mathisen's personal bests on the three longest distances were simply too good for Thunberg to match. However, Mathisen – who was born five years before Thunberg – turned professional during World War I, meaning that the two never met in an ISU-sanctioned event.

Record

World records

Over the course of his career, Thunberg skated four world records:

Distance	Time	Date	Location
500 m	42.8	January 19, 1929	Davos
1000 m	1:28.4	January 11, 1930	Davos
500 m	42.6	January 13, 1931	St. Moritz
3000 m	5:19.2	January 8, 1932	Davos

Source: SpeedSkatingStats.com^[2]

Personal records

To put these personal records in perspective, the Notes column lists the official world records on the dates that Thunberg skated his personal records.

Personal records
Men's Speed skating
Distance	Time	Date	Location	Notes
500 m	42.6	January 13, 1931	St. Moritz	42.8
1000 m	1:27.4	March 4, 1931	Oslo	1:28.4
1500 m	2:18.1	January 11, 1930	Davos	2:17.4
3000 m	5:00.6	February 12, 1933	Davos	5:19.2
5000 m	8:32.6	February 4, 1928	Davos	8:26.5
10000 m	17:34.8	February 5, 1928	Davos	17:22.6

Note that Thunberg's personal record on the 3000 m was not recognised as an official world record.

Thunberg has an Adelskalender score of 192.633 points. His highest ranking on the Adelskalender was a second place.

Medals

An overview of medals won by Thunberg at important championships he participated in, listing the years in which he won each:

Source: SpeedSkatingStats.com^[2]

References