Tommi Evilä at the Finnish-Swedish match (© Hasse Sjogren)
Gothenburg, Sweden"It was 80 years ago today ...." Well, not exactly to the day but it was indeed in 1925 that the first edition of the "Finnkampen" – the prestigious yearly dual meet between Sweden and Finland – was held and despite its venerable age it is still very much alive.
The 2005 edition held this past weekend at the 1995 World Championships arena - Ullevi Stadium in Göteborg – provided the traditional mixture of drama and brilliant individual performances and although the meet was broadcast live on TV it attracted well over 20.000 enthusiastic spectators each day. This year Finland won the men’s (212 vs 197pts), and Sweden the women’s (230 vs 179) match.
The recipe for this enduring success is a memorable history and the unique format where each nation fields three athletes in each event making the second and third string athletes just as important for the final outcome as the stars that otherwise mainly compete in major international championships and Grand Prix meets.
And even those stars truly love "Finnkampen" and the nowadays generally friendly rivalry between Sweden and Finland was certainly there even for those four that had reached the podium in Helsinki a couple of weeks ago and who now were presented with a special award during the opening ceremony: Swedes Carolina Klüft, Kajsa Bergqvist and Emma Green and Finn Tommi Evilä.
Further national record for Evilä
Evilä not only competed successfully in his own event the Long Jump: As captain of the Finnish team he was also very energetic in pushing on his team-mates in all events during the two long days! Returning to the stadium where he last year set a PB with 8.15 he once more improved his best as he surpassed the 8.18 NR set in the Helsinki qualification by one centimetre. Evilä´s winning mark was a slightly wind-aided 8.20.
The weather was like Helsinki too!
He probably would have gone even further if his wish for good weather had been fulfilled. Unfortunately it was once more some kind of "Diet Helsinki" version, i.e. tricky winds, temperatures never above 18 degrees Celsius and one significant rain shower per day. The showers seemed to be especially "interested" in the High Jump as they both days hit the arena at the decisive moments.
On Saturday it began to rain when the bar was at 2.20 and at 2.23 it was really pouring down. Stefan Holm, who had flown in from the Brussels Golden League the night before, finally won a jump-off versus teammate Linus Thörnblad by clearing 2.21.
On Sunday Helsinki medallists Kajsa Bergqvist and Emma Green had the double victory sewn up already after clearing their opening height of 1.82. They progressed through 1.88 and 1.92 before an intense drizzle began. Kajsa still flew over 1.96 with at least 5 centimeters to spare while Emma went out. Kajsa, who had suffered from a heavy cold since jumping 2.03 in London one week earlier, was very close in her first attempt at 2.00 but then the necessary power was gone.
Five events for Klüft end with Hamstring injury
The fourth Helsinki medallist Carolina Klüft contested "only" five events this year (compared to seven last year) focussing on the sprints/hurdles and restricting her jumping to the Long Jump. In the sprints/hurdles she teamed up with Susanna and Jenny Kallur and the trio truly dominated with Susanna the star of the weekend.
They began on Saturday with the 200m where Susanna won in a 23.32 PB with fast-closing Carolina 0.01 and fast-starting Jenny 0.20 behind. The trio returned some two hours later together with Emma Rienas and promptly lowered the Swedish 4x100m record by six hundredths to 43.61.
On Sunday Carolina began with two Long Jumps (6.49 – X) before passing the next two rounds to run the 100m. Once more Susanna prevailed and once more she improved her PB: 11.42 gave her a margin of 0.08 over Jenny and 0.13 over Carolina. The latter immediately returned to the Long Jump and delivered a 6.71w in the fifth round and a truly brilliant 6.92w in the last round!
The last part of the Kallur/Klüft show was the 100m Hurdles and for the fourth time in four races it was Susanna that reached the finish line first. Despite the cold and damp conditions her 12.89 missed the meet record belonging to Ludmila Engquist by just two hundredths.
But the big story of the hurdles race was Carolina's injury. Between the 8th and 9th hurdle appearing to be on her way to securing another Swedish 1-2-3 she pulled a hamstring and crashed hard into the 9th hurdle. The stadium suddenly went silent as Carolina remained more or less motionless on the track. However, after a couple of minutes when she was carried away on a stretcher she waived to the spectators to signal that the dramatic fall had not caused any additional injury.
And as Carolina had no more competitions planned this season the hamstring pull was as timely as such an injury could be. The autumn should have been a period of rest and restitution anyway.
Near to podium in Helsinki
Also several athletes that didn't quite reach the podium in the World Championships provided top performances. Tero Pitkämäki e.g. opened with 83.93 and then improved to 86.90 (Tero Järvenpää second with 84.05 PB, and improvement from 81.73), Olli-Pekka Karjalainen impressed in the Hammer Throw winning with 77.20 and in the Pole Vault Patrik Kristiansson cleared 5.72 and added a couple of "decent" attempts at 5.90.
New meet records – in addition to Evilä's and Klüft's (wind-aided) in the Long Jumps – were also provided in the 200m (Johan Wissman 20.66, lowering a mark that had stood for 30 years!!) and in the women's Hammer Throw (Cecilia Nilsson 67.20). Narrow misses not only for Susanna Kallur in the 100m Hurdles but also for a youthful Finnish 4x100m team that tied the 39.30 NR.
Susanna Kallur was not the only multiple-winner of the meet as Swedish Helsinki steeplechase finalist Mustafa Mohamed comfortably won the 5000m and as Finnish former Olympic finalist Annemari Sandell-Hyvärinen returned to international action and dominated both the 5000m and the 10000m.
Talking about multiple winners it should be noted that Robert Kronberg won the 110m Hurdles for 8th time in 9 years and that Helsinki finalist Anna Söderberg got her 12th triumph in the Discus Throw since 1992!
Rising to the occasion
But despite all this the core of the "Finnkampen" is the team competition where otherwise rather anonymous athletes by rising to the occasion could become national celebrities – at least for the day. This year that was best illustrated by Swede Oskar Käck who in his second ever 10,000m race followed European Marathon champion Janne Holmen until 300m remained and then exploded into a winning finish sprint in the process lowering his PB by over half a minute and making the spectators go wild.
Overall the women's competition belonged to Sweden all the way ending in the record size winning margin of 51 points (230 vs 179), while the men's match wasn't decided until the very last event. It then turned out that Finland had prevailed by 15 points (212 vs 197), mainly thanks to its superiority in the throws (1-2-3 in the DT, HT and JT and 1-2-4 in the SP gave +38 points!).
So despite having turned 80 the "Finnkampen" is still far from on the brink of retirement. Especially as new generations of young athletes are deliberately infected by the "virus" through the U18 youth match which every year is held in conjunction with the senior dual. Judging from the outcome this year – clear victories for both the boys and the girls – the long time "Finnkampen" future looks especially bright for Sweden!
Lennart Julin for the IAAF
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