Finland
continues its athletics love affair at the Asics Grand Prix
IAAF
13 August 2002 – Helsinki – The Finnish capital which played host to the
inaugural IAAF World Championships of 1983 and which in 2005 will become the
first repeat venue, embraces along with Finland as a whole, an undying passion
for track and field athletics.
A glance at the front pages of any of Finland's national newspapers on Monday would have convinced even the hardest cynic that athletics remains the country's national summer sport.
It’s been a long time since the Finns have been able to salute a “Flying Finn”. This term of admiration, originally derived by American and British journalists in the 1920’s to describe the conveyor belt of world beating long distance runners that Finland produced before 1940, was last reignited at the beginning of the 1970’s by the names such as Vaatainen, Viren and Vasala.
On Sunday, Janne Holmen, a 24 year old runner who comes from the Finnish Aland Islands gave the kiss of life to this fast dying tradition by winning the European Championships Marathon in Munich.
Holmen's feat led to photographs of this quiet history graduate's victorious run dominating, and in some cases taking up the entire front page of every national newspaper yesterday. The Helsingin Sanomat, the largest selling broadsheet daily in Scandinavia, - possessing a similar reputation for hard news as either the London Times or Washington Post - carried Holmen’s victory as it’s lead story, giving secondary billing to the rest of the world and national news.
The Finns had waited since 1954 for another marathon victory at the continental championships. More significantly since their running renaissance in the 1970’s, no Finnish track runner had been able to win a major track title in the last twenty and more years. In this context the venue of Holmen’s victory was all the more emotional for Finnish running fans because Munich was the site of four time Olympic champion Lasse Viren’s first gold medal triumphs in 1972.
Janne is the son of an illustrious running family, a second generation Flying Finn. His mother is Nina Holmen who won the inaugural European 3000m title in 1974 and his father Rune was a European championship 5000m finallist in Helsinki in 1971.
Janne Holmen walked off the plane from Munich yesterday morning, straight into a Helsinki Civic reception to honour both his success and those of Finland’s two other European medallists, Heli Koivula (triple jump, silver) and Mikaela Ingberg (javelin, bronze).
Tomorrow the wider population of Helsinki will continue the post Munich celebrations at the Olympic stadium, where the Asics Grand Prix (IAAF GPII) will take place.
While Holmen not surprisingly just two days after the marathon will not compete, both Koivula and Ingberg will be present, and the usual crowd of 20,000 is sure to be swelled by the post-Munich mood.
Unlike most of Europe at present, Finland is experiencing exceptionally warm (27c Celsius) and dry weather, and that is bound to please the sprinters.
In the men’s 100m these include Americans Shawn Crawford and Brian Lewis, Nigeria’s Deji Aliu and South Africa’s Morne Nagel. Finland’s Munich 5th placer Markus Poyhonen is bound to reap the benefits of an upbeat crowd. In the women’s dash, America’s in-form Christy Gaines and the Jamaicans Beverly McDonald and Juliet Campbell are the principal players.
The name to conjure with in the women’s 400m is Mozambique’s Maria Mutola who away from her specialist two laps, will have her hands full contending with Jamaica’s Sandie Richards and Bahamas’ Christine Amertil, both of whom have been comfortably sub 51 seconds this season.
Headlining the men’s sprints, though over the barriers, will be four-time European champion Colin Jackson in the 110m hurdles. The British world record holder will face USA’s world champion Allen Johnson and Latvia’s Stanislavs Olijars.
In the one lap hurdles, it will be the battle of the bronze, as South Africa’s Olympic third placer Llewellyn Herbert competes against Japan’s world championships bronze medallist, Dai Tamesue.
In the men’s high jump, look out for the newly crowned European champion Yaroslav Rybakov of Russia, Canada’s Commonwealth silver medallist Kwaku Boateng and American Charles Clinger who has jumped 2.35 this year.
The Finns of course also have a love affair with the javelin throw.
In the men's contest the cast is impressive including world lead and European silver medallist Sergey Makarov, the Germans Boris Henry and Raymond Hecht and Finland’s world silver medallist Aki Parviainen who is battling his way back from a shoulder operation and injury.
The women’s spear offers the local fans a chance to honour their double European bronze medallist Mikaela Ingberg, who will face Germany’s Munich silver medallist Steffi Nerius and Russia’s Tatyana Shikolenko.
The women’s triple jump pitches the revelation of the Finnish team Heli Koivula the European silver medallist, against the bronze medallist from Munich, Russia’s Jelena Oleynikova.
Yet despite the presence of the two local heroines, the centre piece of the Asics Grand Prix will be the men’s shot put which provides possibly the strongest line up of throwers ever assembled outside a major championship.
The world leading American 21m plus trio of Adam Nelson, Kevin Toth and three-time world champion John Godina will take on the best that the old continent can offer. Europe puts up the new European champion Ukraine’s Yuriy Belonog and Finland’s Olympic champion Arsi Harju. In all, five of the top six throwers from Munich will be competing in the circle of the 1952 Olympic stadium. Let battle commence!
