Tommi Evilä back on top form in Gothenburg (© Hasse Sjogren)
Gothenburg, SwedenDespite the everincreasing intensity of the global and continental programme of competition the prestigious annual match between Sweden and Finland, whose 2007 edition took place in Gothenburg last weeked (8 / 9 Sep), still manages to not only survive but also attract a strong interest from both the athletes and the general public in these two Nordic countries.
The tradition was started in 1925 and since 1953 the match has been a yearly event that fulfills the double purpose of putting athletics into the media focus and of providing a significant income for the federations. This year the match was hosted by Sweden in nice (albeit windy) autumn weather in the Ullevi Stadium and although it was broadcast live on TV it attracted some 20,000 spectators both Saturday and on Sunday.
With the team aspect the priority top athletes usually double or even triple up, sometimes competing also in events not usually on their programme. This year the Osaka No 4 steeplechaser Mustafa Mohamed ran the 1500m (2nd to Finland's Jonas Hamm) and the 5000m (led a Swedish 1-2-3) rather than his specialty because that contribution was regarded to be more advantageous to the overall Swedish point score.
Klüft – windy 14.02m windy Triple and 6.76m Long Jumps
A few years ago Carolina Klüft – the foremost Heptathlete in the world – was scheduled to compete in no less than seven events in the "Finnkampen", but this year she restricted herself to just three: Long Jump, 100m Hurdles and – Triple Jump!! The last time she had done the Triple Jump was in the same match three years ago when she took off from the right foot in three attempts (best of 13.87) and then from the left foot in the other three (best of 13.73).
This time she had practiced some triple jumping since finishing the Osaka Heptathlon and based on that decided to concentrate on the right foot take-off. And although the technique still was far from textbook her athleticism brought the series 13.95w – 14.17w – 13.95 – pass – 13.54 – 14.02. The longest jump was aided by a massive +5.8 mps but it should at the same time be noted that she took off some ten centimeters before the twenty centimeters wide board!
Klüft's winning margin was a hefty 49cm, but still smaller than in the Long Jump where her 6.76w gave a cushion of no less than 62 cm upon second place. In the hurdles she also defeated all her Finnish opponents but still had to be content with finishing a very distant second to Susanna Kallur's 12.80. Susanna showed no signs of tiredness despite having flown in from Zürich were she on Friday night had triumphed over the world elite including World champion Michelle Perry.
Impressive 'Zürich to Gothenburg' travellers
Also the other four athletes that had rushed to Gothenburg after competing in the Letzigrund performed impressively on Ullevi:
Finland’s World Javelin champion Tero Pitkämäki received a strong challenge from Magnus Arvidsson whose 85.47 was just 28 cm off his PB and 92 cm off Pitkämäki's winning distance.
Osaka 400m finalist Johan Wissman followed his third place in the Zürich 200m (where he defeated several Osaka finalists) with a convincing win over the half-lap distance also here: 20.47 was over six tenths faster than second place. Johan also ran the anchor leg on the 4x400m relay, but that event had been won long before he took over the baton.
And Osaka finalist Emma Green dominated the High Jump with her 1.93m as Sweden scored almost maximum points despite the absence of Kajsa Bergqvist: European U23 bronze medallist Ebba Jungmark was second and European Junior Champion Erika Wiklund tied for third.
But two of the truly outstanding marks of were provided by two athletes who neither competed in Zürich nor had any success in the World Championships:
Thörnblad - 2.30m season’s best
Sweden’s Linus Thörnblad bounced back from his miserable showing in the Osaka High Jump final by having a perfect record up to and including 2.30 and thereby defeating Stefan Holm for the first time in 2007. It probably was only the strongly gusting headwind that prevented Thörnblad from going even higher. He had a couple very good attempts at 2.32 despite having to refocus a couple of time as the wind repeatedly blew the bar off the supports.
Evilä – leaps to 8.41m windy
The same wind complicated matters for the Long Jumpers and resulted in a large number of fouls - but the athletes could also take advantage of it. One who really did that was 2005 World championships brinze medallist Tommi Evilä who missed Osaka and has been bothered with knee and groin injuries for most of the last two years. In the fifth round Evilä shocked everyone by riding a +3.8 mps wind to 8.41w, a distance only three other jumpers have surpassed this year (with or without wind-aid)! Evilä's series 6.01w – X – X – X – 8.41w – pass tells the story of the capricious nature of the Ullevi wind this weekend.
But actually the true core of the "Finnkampen" with its 3-athletes-per-nation-and-event format concept is that it is mainly not about the stars but about strength in depth. Even if you have the individual winner of the event your team might loose the event pointwise. Something that makes the fights between the 2nd and 3rd string athletes just as significant and exciting for the crowd as those for the win.
Near point perfect for Finnish throwers secures men’s win
The ultimate ambition of each team is of course the perfect score 16-6 that you achieve if your athletes manage to clinch the top-3 places individually. Traditionally Finland has been dominating the men's throwing events in this way and this year was no exception: Mika Vasara led a sweep in the Shot Put, ex-South African Frantz Kruger one in the Discus, Olli-Pekka Karjalainen one in the Hammer and it was only Magnus Arvidsson's 2nd place in the Javelin that spoiled a perfect Finnish record in the throws.
The 36 points gained in that group of events became the key to Finland managing to eke out a narrow victory in the men's match for the third year in a row: In 2005 they won by 15 points (212-197), in 2006 by 3 points (204-201) and this year by 4 points (203-199)! The match was very much alive until very last event – the 800m – where all 6 runners were shifting positions down the home straight. In the end it was only the 18 hundredths that separated 4th and 6th place in the 800m that decided final outcome of the whole match.
Swedish women untouchable
The women's match has been dominated by Sweden in recent years and although Finland actually was leading by four points after the ten events held on Saturday it once more ended with a quite affirmative Swedish win: 219-189, i.e. by thirty points. This because Sweden on Day 2 had the winner in 9 out of 10 events and the point score advantage in 8 out of 10 events.
Manninen makes it a triple success
That was something that not even the Herculean efforts of Johanna Manninen could compensate. The Finnish sprinter, who is on the comeback trail after a broken Achilles and recently took the 100m gold medal at the Universiade in Bangkok, dominated the sprints here winning both the 100m and the 200m, anchoring the winning 4x100m team and also contributing a leg on the 4x400m team.
Although "Finnkampen" currently is very much "alive and kicking" it is always necessary to remember that lots of beautiful traditions have faded away because of forgetting to continuously "infect" new generations with "the virus". However, for "Finnkampen" this is taken care of by the fact that the senior's match since 1973 is accompanied by a youth match.
If the outcome of these U18-matches (athletes born in 1990 or later) are any indication for what will happen on the senior level in some 5-10 years the future looks very bright indeed for Sweden. Because not only did the host nation win both matches in Gothenburg this year, they did it with record margins: The girls by 51 points (125-74) and the boys by 46 points (122-76).
The "Finnkampen" might have been born in the 1920's but it certainly is not in any way ready for retirement yet!
Lennart Julin for the IAAF
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