Aki Parviainen (FIN) (© Getty Images)
After a disappointing summer for next year’s World Championships host nation Finland, former Olympic and World champions Arsi Harju and Aki Parviainen, the top two names in Finnish athletics over the last six years, have made coaching changes in a bid to secure gold on home ground next summer.
For the first time in Finnish Olympic history, which stretches back to the 1906 ‘Interim Games’, the nations track and field team returned from Athens without a medal. Coming on the back of a similar first time duck at the World Championships of the previous summer, there is an urgent search for genuine medal candidates for next summer’s World Championships in Helsinki, which was also the venue for the inaugural event in 1983.
Public devotion
Even during such a medal drought, the Finnish public remains devoted to Athletics, registering one of the highest national television ratings in the world for the Athens Olympics according to EBU figures. Huge ticket sales were also recorded for the 2005 World Championships when they were opened to the public at the time of the Games, with more than 60% of the evening session seats now having already been sold.
However, as anyone who witnessed the scenes which surrounded Tiina Lillak’s dramatic last round Javelin victory in the inaugural World Championships in 1983, there is nothing so good as a home winner.
Hoping to make the grade are two world class athletes of distinction, 1999 World Javelin champion Aki Parviainen and 2000 Olympic Shot champion Arsi Harju, who have recently taken new coaching paths in preparation for next summer.
Respected coach
Parviainen, 30, who is the second longest thrower of all-time behind Jan Zelezny and also took the World silver medal behind the great Czech in 2001, has had shoulder and knee operations in recent years. Yet despite a good comeback to 5th place at the 2003 World Championships in Paris, he did not even manage to make the Finnish Olympic trio for Athens.
In order to recapture one of the highly contested team berths for next summer in the always high quality Finnish championship squad – all three men reached the Olympic final in Athens – Parviainen has now switched coach and will train again with Leo Pusa, who guided him in 2001. Pusa who trained 1988 Olympic champion Tapio Korjus and 1996 Olympic women’s gold medallist Heli Rantanen, is one of the most respected Javelin coaches in the world.
Harju for his part has also made the decision to split from Jorma Tuominiemi, the man who has coached him since his junior years, and who brought him not just to the Olympic title but also a World bronze medal in 2001.
Harju, who has had technical problems ever since his fourth place finish in the 2003 World Indoor Championships, and whose chest injury prevented him from joining the Finnish trio of putters in Athens, will train towards the World Championships in Helsinki without a coach. The co-operation with Tuominiemi, has ended without bitterness in a full understanding between the two.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
