Karvonen was born in
Sakkola, a small
Karelian town that then belonged to Finland but was invaded by the
Soviet Union during
World War II. Karvonen was evacuated to
Saarijärvi, where he started his running career training with
Jussi Kurikkala. He ran his first marathon in autumn 1949 in
Turku with the promising result of 2:45:07. Karvonen participated in the
1950 European Championships in
Brussels. He finished second in the marathon 32 seconds after the winner
Jack Holden. In the
Track & Field News annual world ranking he was the second best marathon runner of 1950, after Holden. In 1951 Karvonen ran three marathons and won all of them. In the Finnish Championship marathon in July his winning time was 2:28:46. In August in the Nordic Championship marathon he ran 2:28:07. In September he won the
Enschede Marathon by over six minutes' margin before
Tom Richards, Karvonen's winning time was 2:29:02. Karvonen was still sixth at the
1958 European Championships with his all-time third best time, 2:22:45, second at the 1958 Fukuoka Marathon, and fourth at the 1959 Boston Marathon. During his career Karvonen ran a total of 35 marathons and won 15 of them. ==See also==