Weekend Sports Round-up: A win, a draw, and a defeat for Finland

The weekend saw Finnish national teams in action on three fronts: the footballers played Andorra in Tampere in their second 2006 World Cup qualifier, the ice hockey players hosted Sweden in their final round-robin match of the World Cup of Hockey’s European Division, and in Gothenburg, Sweden and Finland ran, jumped, and threw in their annual track and field meet, with the Swedes seen as hot favourites after their three gold medals in Athens. Mika Kallio, meanwhile, was riding his 125 cc bike in the Portuguese GP at Estoril.
     
     
THE DEFEAT
     
Sweden beat Finland comprehensively in both the men’s and women’s matches at the annual Finnkampen athletics international, held this year in Gothenburg’s Ullevi Stadium. The Swedish men won by 217 points to 191, while the women were even more dominant, stretching the nine-point advantage gained on the first day to a crushing and record-breaking 50 points - 228.5 to 178.5.
      A big crowd (more than 50,000 in all) turned out for the two-day meet, one of the few old-time “internationals” left in the track and field calendar these days. Many of them were attracted by the idea of seeing Sweden’s Olympic gold medallists in action. Heptathlon winner Carolina Klüft, high jumper Stefan Holm, and triple jumper Christian Olsson were all representing their country.
     
Klüft in particular was not hard to spot: she took part in no fewer than six individual events, and she won two of them - the high jump and long jump. Klüft gathered a colossal and demoralising 30 points for the team all on her own, and she was also one of the victorious Swedish 4 x 100 metres relay quartet.
      Holm’s jump of 2.35 was only a centimetre below the performance that won him gold in Athens. Olsson, meanwhile, aced his event by a full metre with a very reasonable jump of 17.49.
     
There were few causes for Finnish flag-waving: the men did collect 1-2-3 victories in the javelin and the 1500 metres, and the women enjoyed a javelin whitewash, but that was as good as it got.
      One bright spot was that Finnish long-jumper Tommi Evilä managed 8.15, only a centimetre short of a Finnish men’s record that has stood for 38 years.
      If the Finns really wanted some balm for their wounds, it would have to be that the juniors continued to beat the neighbours: the Finnish boys won by 108-92, and the girls by 103-98.
      So there’s always next year.
     
     
THE VICTORY
     
Finland ran out 3-0 winners against the footballing minnows of Andorra (population around 70,000) in Tampere on Saturday, to notch up their first points of the World Cup 2006 qualifying campaign.
      Though the result was never in any great doubt, the visiting part-timers defended in depth and the Finns were made to work more than they might have hoped in the first half. They led at the break by just a single goal, scored on 42 minutes directly from a free-kick by recent Lecce signing Alexei Eremenko Jr. The 21-year-old had also scored Finland’s only goal in their 2-1 defeat to Romania.
      Crystal Palace midfielder Aki Riihilahti added a scrambled second goal from close range after an hour, and four minutes later Eremenko Jr. curved another excellently flighted free-kick from around 25 metres to beat the Andorra goalkeeper Jesus Luiz Alvarez at the near post.
     
The Finns could in fact  have a had a hatful of goals. Eremenko should have scored a hat-trick, and the Birmingham City/Chelsea striker Mikael Forssell will have left the ground wondering how he failed to score on at least two or three occasions.
      This was a must-win game for the Finns and their coach Antti Muurinen, as is their next fixture, away to Armenia on Wednesday.
      The Armenians should provide marginally tougher opposition, though they started their campaign with a resounding 3-0 defeat at the hands of Macedonia.
      Finland play Armenia twice this autumn, with the home fixture coming on October 9th, just four days before the considerably larger mountain of a trip to Amsterdam to face the mighty Dutch side. A point from that game would be an achievement indeed.
     
     
THE DRAW
     
Finland and Sweden met on the ice in Helsinki on Saturday night in a frenetic World Cup of Hockey match that fully lived up to the advance billing.
      Both teams had already guaranteed themselves home advantage for the quarter-finals, regardless of Saturday’s outcome, but there was still a good deal at stake besides national pride.
      When the scores remained tied at 4-4 even after a 5-minute sudden death overtime period, the Finns could consider that they had come out on top: their better goal difference ensured that they will face the relatively easier opponents - Germany - in the quarters, while the Swedes will have to face off against a fast-improving Czech Republic team.
      The winners of those games will travel across the Atlantic for the semi-finals.
     
The Finnish Lions got a lightning start. Ville Peltonen and Ossi Väänänen had a goal apiece on the scoreboard inside the first five minutes, and although Fredrik Modin got one back on a Swedish powerplay, Saku Koivu made it 3-1 just 19 seconds later.
      Niklas Lidström (again on the powerplay) narrowed the gap after 17 minutes, and Modin scored his second of the night in the final minute of an action-packed first period to put the scores level.
      The Finns took just 38 seconds of the second period to get their noses in front again, courtesy of Olli Jokinen  and some sloppy goalkeeping from Mikael Tellqvist, and it stayed that way until 11 seconds from the end of the third, when Tomas Holmström snatched an equaliser to force overtime.
      The Swedes had by this stage removed their goalie and also had a man over, after Kimmo Timonen got a penalty for cross-checking with 53 seconds left on the clock.
     
On the subject of penalties, the Finnish coach Raimo Summanen had little by way of printable words to say about the two North American referees, Dan Marouelli and Kevin Pollock. Sweden are not a team one ever wants to face short-handed, and the Finns could feel slightly hard done by to receive 8 minor penalties in normal time to the Swedes’ four.
      Goalie Miikka Kiprusoff may have been obliged to concede a goal after 132 minutes of shut-out play in the tournament so far, and a further three may have gone behind him, but he had another excellent game, making 26 saves including some critical stops in the final period.
      All in all, it was great entertainment for a sell-out crowd in the Hartwall Arena, and the gutsy way in which the Finns responded to that “Oh-oh, here we go again” moment when the Swedes pulled level at 3-3 in the first period will have warmed local hearts.
      The quarter-final match against Germany will be on Monday.
     

P.S. It was announced on Sunday night that Finnish defenseman Janne Niinimaa  will take no further part in the World Cup. Niinimaa, who played in all three of Finland’s round-robin matches, apparently had a problem of personal chemistry with coach Raimo Summanen, and he abruptly quit the squad after training on Sunday. Niinimaa had earlier expressed a measure of disappointment at not being among the initial picks for the team. He joined only after Jere Karalahti  was declared ineligible to play by the NHL organisers.
     
     
THE PODIUM PLACE
     
KTM works rider Mika Kallio equalled his best-ever Moto GP performance on Sunday and gained his first podium finish of the current season when he took 2nd place in the 125 cc Portuguese Grand Prix race around the Estoril track.
      The 21-year-old Kallio had started from 9th on the grid, but he rapidly worked himself up to 4th, despite suffering from a lack of power on the straights. Kallio’s case was helped by the retirement of 125 cc championship leader Andrea Dovizioso of Italy, whose Honda went out with a puncture while heading the field.
      Kallio’s KTM team-mate Casey Stoner, who is ahead of nthe Finn in the championship table, also went off after a collision with Simone Corsi’s Honda.
      Kallio and Hector Barbera (Spain, Aprilia) fought it out all the way to the line, and the Spaniard just managed to hold his rival off by 0.151 seconds. With his third win of the season, he moved up into second place in the Riders’ Championship overall, 20 points behind Dovizioso. Kallio is in 10th spot with 74 points.
      Mika’s older brother Vesa Kallio finished 18th on the Red Devil Team Hungary Aprilia. Both will presumably be riding in the Japanese Grand Prix at the Motegi circuit in two weeks’ time, and Mika Kallio plans to go one better than 2nd place next time out.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish men squeeze past Sweden in athletics meet; women lose by narrow margin (8.9.2003)
  Romania 2 Finland 1: Finns lose opening World Cup qualifier in Bucharest (19.8.2004)
  Finns beat Germany 3-0; ensure home advantage in Hockey World Cup quarter-finals (3.9.2004)
  Selections for World Cup of Hockey left Niinimaa disappointed (31.8.2004)

Links:
  UEFA
  World Cup of Hockey 2004
  Mika Kallio
  Vesa Kallio
  Moto GP (requires Shockwave plug-in)