This statue of Viren, who is still living, is located near the former Olympic Stadium in Helsinki.
It depicts him lifesized and running. it is set on a marble pedestal about 4 feet tall.
The artist of the 1994 sculpture is Terho Sakki (1930 - 1997)
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"Lasse Artturi Virén (born 22 July 1949) is a retired police officer and a Finnish former long-distance runner, winner of four gold medals at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics. Born in Myrskylä, Finland, Virén recaptured the image of the "Flying Finns" promoted by runners like Hannes Kolehmainen, Paavo Nurmi, and Ville Ritola in the 1920s...
Olympic career
1972
At the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, Virén won both the 5,000 and the 10,000 metres events. At the 10,000 metres final held on 3 September, Virén broke Ron Clarke's 7-year-old world record despite falling in the twelfth lap after getting tangled with Emiel Puttemans. Tunisia's Mohamed Gammoudi also fell after being tripped by Viren's legs. In less than 150 metres, Virén caught up with the leading pack after losing about 20 to 30 metres. With 600 metres to go, Virén dropped the hammer and started an unprecedented lap-and-a-half kick that only Belgium's Emiel Puttemans was able to respond to, but not outmatch. The Finn won the race in 27:38:40 (which is still the current record for the Olympiastadion). He became the fourth athlete to win both events in the same Olympics, joining fellow Finn Hannes Kolehmainen (1912), Czechoslovakia's Emil Zátopek (1952) and Russian Vladimir Kuts (1956). After them, Miruts Yifter (1980) and Kenenisa Bekele (2008), both from Ethiopia, and Mo Farah from Great Britain (2012), accomplished the coveted "double". However, it must be stated that Kolehmainen, Virén (on both occasions) and Yifter were the only ones in this illustrious list that had to endure 10,000 metres heats to qualify for the 10,000 metres final, thus making winning the "double" more challenging. In the 5,000-metres final one week later, Viren could keep up with Steve Prefontaine of the United States, Gammoudi, Puttemans and Ian Stewart of Great Britain, in the race's quick final four laps. He sprinted past Gammoudi with around 110 to 120 metres to go, and won in 13:26.4, one second before Gammoudi. Four days later, despite the wet, chilly and windy weather in the Helsinki Olympic Stadium, he set a new world record at 5,000 metres by running 13:16.4. About one week later, Puttemans broke the record by roughly three seconds.
Following his 10,000 metres final win at the Montreal games, he took off his Onitsuka Tiger (ASICS) Runspark shoes and waved them to the crowd on his victory lap. The International Olympic Committee accused Virén of malicious intent, such as showing the tiger stripe logo on the shoes, but he claimed that he had a blister. Thus, the IOC suspended Virén from taking place in the 5,000-metres final after qualifying in his heat. An appeal followed and he was allowed to enter the race, two hours before gun time.
One factor in Virén's Olympic victories, especially at the 1972 Olympics 5,000 and 10,000 metres, has received little attention: his careful running of almost all the bends (curves) near the inner edge of the first lane, which spared him tens of metres compared to his chief rivals. More specifically, the United States' Steve Prefontaine gave Virén a handicap of over forty metres at the 1972 Olympics 5,000 metres, and Belgium's Emiel Puttemans gave Virén a handicap of about fifty metres at the 1972 Olympics 10,000 metres, by running many bends wide on the outer edge of the first lane or sometimes even on the second lane. This skillful practice of avoiding the running of extra metres in long-distance track races is called "bend (curve) mathematics".
1976
Virén ran at lower levels between the Olympics. At the 1976 Summer Olympics, Virén again won both events, coined later as the "double double", and became the only repeat winner of the 5,000 metres race in Olympic history. He won the 10,000-metre final comparatively easily, because even Great Britain's Brendan Foster dropped from the steadily accelerating pace of Portugal's Carlos Lopes at 8,000 metres, and because Lopes back then was unable to radically increase his pace in the last lap or so of track races. Virén passed Lopes at around 9,550 metres and defeated him by 4.79 seconds. In the 5,000 metres final, he held off all-time greats Dick Quax, Rod Dixon and Brendan Foster (all world-class at 1,500 m) with a devastating display of front-running over the last few laps. To those who watched him, the display was awesomely inspiring to the point that his last 1,500 metres in that final would have placed him 8th in the 1,500-metres final held at those Games. The top four runners sprinted to the finish line inside six metres, a rare occurrence in major international championships. Remarkably, 18 hours after the 5,000-metres final, he competed in the men's marathon and finished fifth in 2:13:11.
1980
Lasse Virén ended his career after the 1980 Summer Olympics, where he placed fifth in the 10,000 metres. Virén qualified for that final, placing fourth and having clocked a disappointing 28:45 in his heat. Only after Ireland's John Treacy collapsed during his heat, due to heat stroke, was Virén given an automatic place in the final. Otherwise, he would have qualified for the final as a fastest loser. He pushed that final's leading pack until the last 300 metres, before succumbing to the lethal kick of Miruts Yifter, the eventual gold medalist. Some people claimed that Viren could have run better in the 1980 Olympics if he had not done so much marathon-like training. Viren himself believes that if he had not injured his leg shortly before the Olympics, he would have run clearly better. Viren skipped the 5,000-metres race and chose to compete in the Olympic marathon, where he started quite well, running over 20 kilometres in the lead group. Stomach problems, however, caused him to drop out before 30 kilometres.[9] In the autumn of 1980, he announced his retirement from active competitive running."