Arnold Clas Robert Thunberg (5 April 1893, Helsinki – 28 April 1973, Helsinki) was a male Finnish ice speed skater. He 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 Championship - and for the following ten years, he was by far the most-winning skater. April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (96th in leap years). ... 1893 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Province Southern Finland Region Uusimaa District Helsinki City manager Jussi Pajunen Official languages Finnish, Swedish Area  - total  - land ranked 342nd 185. ... April 28 is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 247 days remaining. ... 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ... Gaetan Boucher training for the 1976 Olympics Speed skating or speedskating is a form of ice skating in which the competitors attempt to travel a certain distance over the ice as quickly as possible. ...

Thunberg's greatest strengths were the shortest distances, the 500 through 5000 metres. He never won an international 10 kilometre event, although he did win a silver medal on the 10,000 metres in the 1924 Winter Olympic Games - beaten by three seconds by 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 a gold medal in allround speed skating, as despite the status of all-round as the premier skating event, at least up until the 1990s, the event was abolished in the Olympics from 1928 onwards. The metre, or meter, is the basic unit of length in the International System of Units (SI: Système International dUnités). ... A kilometre (American spelling: kilometer, symbol: km) is a unit of length equal to 1000 metres (from the Greek words khilia = thousand and metro = count/measure). ... A silver medal is a medal awarded to the second place finisher of contests (typically athletics competitions) such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. ... (Redirected from 1924 Winter Olympic Games) Originally called Semaine des Sports dHiver (International Winter Sports Week) and held in association with the 1924 Summer Olympics, the sports competitions held at the foot of Mont Blanc in Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France between 25 January and 5 February 1924, organised by... Gaetan Boucher training for the 1976 Olympics Speed skating or speedskating is a form of ice skating in which the competitors attempt to travel a certain distance over the ice as quickly as possible. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ...

Thunberg won five World Championship titles from 1923 to 1931, and also four European Championship 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 1500 metre events didn't 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. World Speed Skating Championships The International Skating Union organizes the following world championships speed skating: Men Allround Women Allround Men Sprint Women Sprint Men Individual Distances Women Individual Distances ... 1923 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1931 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... The II Olympic Winter Games were held in 1928 in Sankt-Moritz, Switzerland. ... 1927 was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Despite his amazing career record, Thunberg never reached the top of Adelskalenderen - a statistical invention which ranks skaters according to their personal bests and then converts them into all-round 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. Oscar Wilhelm Mathisen (1888-1954) was a Norwegian speed skater and celebrity, almost rivalling Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen as symbols for a young nation (Norway became independant in 1905). ... World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... The International Skating Union (ISU) is the international governing body for competitive ice skating disciplines, including figure skating, synchronized skating, speed skating, and short track speed skating. ...

Reference

• Speed Skating Results page on Thunberg