Andrus Varnik of Estonia celebrates after throwing 87.17m (© Getty Images)
Helsinki, FinlandYou have to hand it to the Finns. On a day when the temperature at the World Championships dropped into the single digits, accompanied by gusty winds and intermittent rain, every seat in the stadium was filled. And stayed filled.
Of course, it was an important day for Finnish athletics: the final of the men’s javelin. If there can be said that there is a Finnish national sport, it is javelin throwing. And this passion has spread all around the Baltic nations.
Tero Pitkämäki of Finland, who has thrown past 90 metres in the last few weeks, was the favourite, but Tero ended up only in fourth place.
Still, the medals stayed in the neighborhood. The winner comes from Estonia, just across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki. Second place was filled by a Norwegian and third by a Russian. In fact, the first nine throwers all came from countries bordering on the Baltic Sea.
And as a Finn said to me as we walked out of the stadium, “If Tero couldn’t win, I’m glad it was an Estonian.”
Food for Thought, and Vice-Versa
One of the most pleasant aspects of these Championships is the Food Garden, a big open space a two-minute stroll from the stadium. The one-plus hectare open space (about three acres) is surrounded by tents where one can buy lunch, a snack, or a soft drink or beer and sit at one of the hundreds of tables scattered about all over the area.
What makes it so great is that on most days of the Championships there’s a two-to-four hour break between the day and evening sessions - not quite long enough to go back to the hotel and sleep - which makes the Food Garden the ideal place to spend the break.
The menu includes everything from local dishes like fried herring and marinated turkey to tapas, Greek Salad with feta and Oriental beef in a wok. Pizza, of course, although to be honest, I don’t think the Finns have quite mastered pizza yet.
At one end of the Garden is a huge tent with a 25m wide stage where rock groups play one after the other all day long, their sound blasted forth by 18 huge speakers. There’s good local beer, cabernet shiraz wine from South Australia and soft drinks, including the strangest tasting Pepsi-Cola I’ve ever experienced.
Tiina Lyly (pronounced “Lulu’), the lady who runs the Garden, told me they can handle 6000 people at the same time, and that on a good day they’ll serve as many as 10,000.
Best-seller is a Finnish ham-and-potatoes hash, cooked up in a huge round-bottomed dish about a metre in diameter, in which the ingredients are constantly being added and the mixture constantly being served – sort of a rough-and-ready continuous chemical engineering process.
I bought a plateful to see for myself. It was delicious.
Run, Don’t Walk!
It drives me crazy to see runners slow down in a race before they cross the finish line.
Yesterday, I saw one runner almost stop as he crossed the line and go from second place (and a qualifying spot in the next round of his event) to fourth (and not qualifying). The guys on either side of kept on running until they were past the finish – and our hero had slowed so much that he actually finished 0.12 second behind the qualifiers!
Over the years, I’ve seen athletes lose championship races because they started easing up, or worse, celebrating, before crossing the line, while the guy who should have finished second became the winner.
A good friend of mine missed making the U.S. Olympic team one year because he slowed to a jog at the finish of the 1500m - making him fourth instead of third, and missing the opportunity of a lifetime.
I can’t understand why any coach will stand for an athlete who habitually eases up before the finish line. I mean, if it’s a 100m dash, RUN 100 METRES! If it’s a 1500m, don’t run just 1499m, run the whole 1500.
You may think you look smart when you slow almost to a stop as you’re crossing the finish line, but you don’t.
You look stupid.
James Dunaway for the IAAF
