Tommi Evilä delights hungry Finnish athletics fans with long jump medal

print this

The 10th IAAF World Championships in Athletics came to a close on Sunday evening, with a careful piece of choreographing: one particular medals ceremony was kept back to the last to ensure the crowds stayed in their seats.
      The Finns had been exemplary hosts throughout, but wanted a medal of their own, and after hot favourite Tero Pitkämäki failed to deliver in the men's javelin, great expectations were pinned on the 25-year-old long jumper Tommi Evilä, who made it to Saturday's final in sensational fashion with an opening leap of 8.18 that set a new Finnish record.
      On Saturday, he pulled off an even bigger surprise, though he initially caused severe palpitations in the audience by red-flagging his first two attempts, before he produced a jump of 8.16 that temporarily lifted him to 3rd. Others went by him, but on his fifth attempt, he grabbed the bronze medal with a wind-assisted jump of 8.25 to send the home fans wild.
     
Evilä has faced criticism from some quarters as a "motormouth", but his actions last weekend showed his self-confidence was not misplaced, and he silenced the critics in the most effective manner possible. First he consigned to history a record that was set way back in 1966 and only equalled once since then (in 1989), and then he delivered up manna from heaven in the shape of Finland's only medal at these championships.
      The long jump has not really ever been a strong suit for the Finns, and this was the first medal in the event at World Championships or Olympic level since Jorma Valkama won bronze in Melbourne in 1956.
      Little wonder, then, that the long jump medals ceremony was saved until last, just before the formal closing ceremonies, or that the loudest cheer of the evening was reserved not for gold medallist Dwight Phillips of the USA (8.60) but for the 3rd-placed man.
     
On the final day, slim Finnish hopes of a second medal to round things off rested on Mikaela Ingberg and Paula Tarvainen in the women's javelin, an event close to local hearts.
      Under cloudy but mercifully rain-free skies, Tarvainen produced her best throw of the year so far, 62.64, but could do no better than 6th place in an extraordinary competition in which two women went over the magical 70-metre mark.
      Cuban Olympic champion and world No.1 Osleidys Menendez produced a prodigious heave of 71.70 to set a new world record, and out of the blue the German Christina Obergföll sent the javelin 70.03 for a shock new European record. It was more than five metres further than Obergföll had ever thrown before.
      Menendez collected a cheque for USD 100,000 for the record and joined a select club of three Helsinki 2005 athletes, all women: Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia added another centimetre to her pole vault record, now standing at 5.01, and in the 20km race walk another Russian, Olimpiada Ivanova, recorded a time of 1:25:41.
     
Considering the appalling conditions under which many of the events were held, the overall standard of performances at the Helsinki World Championships was extraordinarily high.
      Finnish officials' blushes were spared by Tommi Evilä (and also by Tarvainen on Sunday), as the team just about achieved its declared target of one medal and four Top-8 performances.


Links:
  IAAF World Championships

Helsingin Sanomat