Chris Turner for IAAF
Arsi Harju might not be a well known name in international athletics but back home in athletics mad Finland, Harju along with most of Finland’s national standard athletes holds a position normally reserved just for football stars in most other countries. Track and field is THE national summer sport in Finland and Arsi Harju is just one of seven 20 metre shot putters that the Finns have produced this season alone!
Finnish Olympic champions are traditionally awarded a house or at very least a building plot in recognition of their triumph and immediately after the competition tonight Harju was musing on his future -
"Not so long ago I spoke about my dream that in my old age I would find myself sitting on a rocking chair in front of my house with a gold medal around my neck. Well, it looks like I’m going to have to start looking for that rocking chair now" smiled an astonished Harju who was quite subdued after his shock win.
"My season started off very poorly. In the spring I was in great physical shape but my technique was a total mess and it was only in late July and then at the Finnish championships in mid August that I really got control of myself in the shot circle" explained Harju.
Harju’s season’s best prior to these championships was his 20.84 metre put with which he won the national championships which were held in the central southern town of Lahti, a town better known internationally as a centre for nordic sports.
Finland is commonly called the "javelin country" due to her great tradition in that event but what has gone unnoticed is Finland’s emerging strength as a shot putting power. It should be noticed that the world’s leading shot putter indoors this winter was also a Finn, Mika Halvari the 1995 world indoor champion. Halvari threw a new 22.09 metre national indoor record this winter and but for a rupture to his achilles tendon he would also have been doing battle with his compatriot tonight.
Harju is a quiet man whose main interests are dogs and classic American cars. He is a typically enigmatic Finnish character but after tonight’s victory maybe he will become slightly easier for the rest of the athletics world to recognise.
In stark contrast to Harju who was obviously stunned by his own performance and slightly at a loss for words, America’s Adam Nelson who came into tonight’s final as the outstanding favourite, was very up beat despite "only" taking the silver medal.
"Hey this is my first major senior championship and so I’m delighted with the medal. I’m very impressed with Arsi, he brought out his best tonight and I have great respect for the way he came back and took the lead with two 21 metre throws. No, I was not really aware of him until today. I knew he had thrown 20.84m this season and I think I might have met him in competition earlier in the season in Rome. So yes Harju’s performance did come as a surprise" commented a delighted Nelson.
Bronze medallist John Godina who only made the US team in this event when C.J. Hunter had to retire through injury, was equally happy with the result tonight. "This is not the first time that I have benefited from someone else’s misfortune. I took a similar route into the American team in 1997 when I won the world title. So it seems I was destined for a medal again under these circumstances all along!"
