[drcongo]

This is a fantastic answer, thank you. It does however raise two other questions... 1. Why was Hannes Kolehmainen treated as a class traitor? And 2. What on earth happened with that big log?

[hn_throwaway_99]

Here's a good answer to #1:

> The working-class athletic clubs in which the Kolehmainen brothers first trained for victory opposed the participation of newly independent Finland in the 1920 Olympics, claiming the Olympic movement served the interests of the global bourgeois. William Kolehmainen, however, convinced his brother to abandon any working-class loyalties and to run at the Antwerp games, understanding the immense fame and fortune that another gold medal could bring the family. Finland's bourgeoisie embraced Kolehmainen's crossings of class lines, while his old working-class comrades denounced him as a traitor.

https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/A_Berg_Flying_2012.pdf

[pasiaj]

A political opponent of my grandfather got angry at him in a meeting.

After the meeting the opponent followed my grandfather as he was walking home and hit him in the head from behind with a ”metrin halko”, a meter long log. He died of a hemorrage.

[drcongo]

Blimey. Thanks for the follow up.

[doikor]

1. To the white/nationalist press he became a hero (a Finnish speaking Finn winning). That alone is enough to make him an enemy of the communists and thus obviously a class traitor as he used to be member of the red/socialist/communist sporting club Helsingin Jyry.

At that time there was 2 sporting unions Jyry was part of the red one. There was a very hard political split along this line for a while (Kolehmainen got fired from his job due to joining Jyry for example).

2. Obviously got bludgeoned to death.