Vilho "Ville" Eino Ritola (18 January 1896 – 24 April 1982) was a Finnish long-distance runner.

He holds the record of winning most athletics medals at a single Games – four golds and two silvers in Paris 1924 – and ranks second in terms of most athletics gold medals at a single Games.

Later he referred many times to this late start of his sports career, and how it put him at a disadvantage compared to his rivals, especially the more famous of the Flying Finns, Paavo Nurmi, who started systematic training in his teens.

In 1919 he joined the Finnish-American Athletic Club and trained together with Hannes Kolehmainen, who had moved to the United States after the 1912 Summer Olympics.

In spring 1919 he took part in his first competition, a New York street race, and finished 33rd among 700 competitors.

In 1921 he started to compete systematically, and in 1922 he won his first AAU Championship gold medals.

[3] In 1923, American Finns started collecting funds to pay for Ville Ritola's trip to Finland, where in May 1924 he took part in the Finnish Olympic qualification competitions.

In his first race, the 10,000 m, in the absence of Nurmi, he won by half a lap and obliterated his own fresh world record by more than 12 seconds.

Finnish officials had selected Ritola for the race as Nurmi was already running in five other distance events.

[2] After the Olympics, Ritola had to return to the US to find employment, while his pregnant wife remained in Finland.

This time, Ritola pulled away from Nurmi in the final curve and won by 12 metres – 3 seconds.

He returned to American construction sites and worked in physically demanding jobs until 1959.

"Ottaa ritolat", translating as something like "pull a Ritola", means to make a quick exit from somewhere.