Tero Järvenpää roars will approval at his new personal best at the Finnish Champs (© Mika Kanerva)
The Finnish Championships were held over four days in Tampere (24 - 27 July) in beautiful weather. The last two days in particular were carried out in perfect summer weather with temperature over 25 degrees Celcius and sun shining brightly and sometimes it was even a bit too warm for the distance runners.
8.11m even without Evilä
These were championships which produced big surprises and it all started on Friday afternoon (25) in the men’s Long Jump qualification. The Finnish hope for Beijing, Tommi Evilä, who recently set a national record 8.22m and won a bronze medal at the 2005 World Championships, fouled all of his three attempts. Later Evilä said that he had been using a shorter approach to save his legs and had a technical problem with his approach in the qualification.
The final of the Long Jump competition on Saturday (26) proved that it would not have been easy to win the National Championships this time as Petteri Lax finally had his first 8m jump of his career. The 2007 U23 European Championships silver medallist hit 8.11m (0.1m/s) with his second jump to win by a huge 42cm margin from Juho-Matti Pimiä, who also set a personal best 7.69m for the second place. Lax also jumped a second best 8.00m (0.0m/s) later in the competition.
Järvenpää throws 86.68m PB
There were plenty of surprise winners in other events with a few narrowly escaping a loss. In the most followed competition on Sunday (27), naturally men’s Javelin, there was a difficult headwind coming partly from the side.
But as soon as this wind problem had been acknowledged it was time for Tero Järvenpää’s first throw and it was the big one for this competition. Järvenpää, representing the organising Tampereen Pyrintö club, set a personal best 86.68m with his first throw and that was enough to win with 2007 World champion Tero Pitkämäki unable to fight the wind conditions finishing in second place with a 82.28m result.
23-year-old Järvenpää took his first top eight finish in major championships in Osaka with 8th place last summer and has come a long way since the 2003 European Junior Championships when he won the silver medal. In fact all of the Finns which were part of that 2003 European Junior medal sweep were competing today. 2003 winner Teemu Wirkkala, also part of the Finnish Olympic trio, was 5th today (78.87m) and Antti Ruuskanen, bronze in 2003, was 4th (79.32m).
However, it is Järvenpää of these three who has progressed to the world’s elite. He has done it rather quietly this season, but surely his fellow javelin throwers know that this Finn is capable of anything at the Olympics, maybe even the gold medal on his best day.
Järvenpää has bettered his personal best by a little more than two metres this season, not that much, but it’s the level of all his competitions this season that has changed dramatically. He reached 84.05m PB already in 2005, then bettered it with a 84.95m in 2006 but 2007 season was rather difficult. The Tampere thrower went to Osaka having thrown 80 metres only in two competitions out of seven, to set a personal best 84.35m in the qualification, and then grab the 8th place in the final with another good 82.10m performance.
The 2008 season has been very different with six competitions until now with the lowest result being 83.66m and two 86m+ performances at the top. Although this competition marked his first win of the season, Järvenpää has finished in top three in all of his six starts including all three of the Golden League meetingsin which he has competed.
“It was a quick release and I didn’t know much of how it went, but it was the big one.” he said of his big first round throw today. The winner passed all of his five remaining throws.
World champion has technical problems
With a month to go until the Javelin final in Beijing, Tero Pitkämäki, having won four national titles in a row, wasn’t very disappointed after the competition, but admitted having some technical problems.
“There was really no doubt of the winner today, he was the best. I had problems adapting to the side wind and just couldn’t beat it today. I’ve had a techinal problem and although I had a good training session earlier this week that just didn’t show up today.”
Esko Mikkola was third with his opening throw of 79.87m and Antti Ruuskanen, who topped the qualification with an 82.63m result, had to settle for 4th place this time with 79.32m. Teemu Wirkkala, who joins the two Teros in Beijing, was far off his best throws of the season only managing 78.87m for the fifth place.
Karjalanen, timing it well for Beijing
In the men’s Hammer Throw, Olli-Pekka Karjalanen, 2006 European silver medallist, grabbed his 11th straight national title with a season’s best 77.93m and is slowly moving closer to a good form. Karjalainen has several goods throws and seemed happy with his performance and will be looking to better his 9th place finish from the 2007 Osaka World Championships.
In the men’s 200m 21-year-old Visa Hongisto, 2007 European U23 champion, renewed his 200m title from 2007 winning in 20.88sed. Another 21-year-old Matti Välimäki had a breakthrough with a 400m win in a 47.17sec, his personal best.
Jussi Utriainen grabbed his third straight double over 5000/10,000m winning with times 14:10.35 and 29:46.55 respectively.
Keskisalo takes solo win
2006 European 3000m Steeplechase champion Jukka Keskisalo won his fourth national Championship in a solo 8:33.21 and looked much more relaxed than three days before in Stockholm.
In the men’s High Jump, Oskari Frösén finally found good form winning with a 2.27m season’s best ahead of Osku Torro who tied his personal best of 2.27m for the second place. Frösén and Torro, who both failed at 2.30m, tied in count-back, and had to go down until 2.22m in the jump-off before Frösén cleared that bar to win.
In the Pole Vault there was a surprise winner. 20-year-old Eemeli Salomäki cleared 5.35m to win favourite Matti Mononen failing to clear his opening height 5.25m and Mikko Latvala, who is on the team to Beijing, not starting the final.
Aleksi Tammentie was another shock winner in the Triple Jump with a 15.93m personal best and Robert Häggblom had to dig deep for the Shot Put win finally managing a 18.88m effort in the last round to win before Seppo Kujala, who produced 18.67m for the second place.
Another Finnish Olympic hope Frantz Kruger won the Discus Throw with a 61.59m throw, but the margin was surprisingly small with Mikko Kyyrö second at 60.80m and Juha Lahdenranta third 59.45m.
Doubles for Keskitalo, Järvenpää and Sandell-Hyvärinen
The women’s events have a lot less standard than the men’s these days in Finland, but there were a few promising results here too. Sari Keskitalo won both sprints clocking season’s bests in both 100m and 200m with 11.49ses and 23.59sec results. Mari Järvenpää was another double winner in 800/1500m (2:07.82/4:26.68) and Annemari Sandell-Hyvärinen also won a double 5000/10,000m (16:15.47/34:53.18).
19-year-old Sandra Eriksson, recently fifth at the World Junior Championships, grabbed her second national title in 10:15.25 in the 3000m Steeplechase. Johanna Halkoaho won the 100m Hurdles in 13.46s having set a season’s best 13.25s in heats.
Vandy beats Nikkanen to Beijing place
Pole Vault was the best women’s event here and it was an extremely tight fight for a place on the Olympic team. Vanessa Vandy and Minna Nikkanen, European Junior champion, exchanged the top position several times with 19-year-old Vandy gambling and winning the competition and Olympic participation.
Nikkanen had cleared 4.25m with her first attempt with Vandy failing. The junior from Vaasa then decided to leave her remaining two tries to 4.30m where she cleared the bar with her second and last attempt to win. Nikkanen left her last try for 4.35m where both failed with Vandy making two more jumps at 4.36m national record height, but not clearing this time.
Pitkämäki’s girl friend, Niina Kelo topped the Heptathlon with 5757 points and will head to Beijing Olympics.
21-year-old Noora Pesola won the Long Jump with a big personal best of 6.46m and 2003 World Youth silver medallist Elina Sorsa was a clear winner in the Triple Jump with 13.40m. Another surprise came in the Shot Put qualification where favourite Suvi Helin could only qualify as the last 8th qualifying position with 12.69m, well off her best marks. But Helin managed to find her rhythm in the final winning with a 15.36m ahead of before Kelo who produced 14.66m.
Anita Hietalahti won the Discus Throw with 54.23m and Beijing team member Merja Korpela the Hammer Throw with 67.43m. Kirsi Ahonen set a season’s best of 58.86m to win her first national title at the age of 32. Taina Kolkkala was second with 56.53m and 19-year-old Jelena Jaakkola third with 55.13m.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
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