Armas Toivonen

Armas Toivonen ( Armas Toivonen Adam, born January 20, 1899 in Halikko, † September 12, 1973 in Helsinki) was a Finnish marathon runner, in 1934 the first European champion in this discipline.

At the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles wanted to compete in the Paavo Nurmi Marathon, which was represented along with Ville Kyronen and Toivonen Finland. For violating the amateur conditions Nurmi was not allowed to compete, and so was the third Finn Lauri Virtanen reported. The Argentine Juan Carlos Zabala went early to the top of the field. After half of the race Zabala led before Virtanen and Toivonen. At kilometer 30 of the marathon debutant Virtanen walked past Zabala, but had to give up at kilometer 37. Zabala won the race before the British Sam Ferris and Toivonen, who after 2:32:12 hours had a backlog of 36 seconds for gold.

In a marathon of the European Athletics Championships 1934 in Turin came to 15 runners, of which only nine reached the goal in the oppressive heat. Toivonen was the race slowly and overtook only at kilometer 30 of the leading Sweden Thore Enochsson; in the end he won in 2:52:29 hours with over two minutes ahead of the Swedes.

Armas Toivonen was 1.71 m tall and weighed 59 kg in his playing days.