Jukka Keskisalo shifts gears towards the summer's track challenges
European 3000 metres steeplechase champion begins season with cross-country nationals
By Ari Pusa in Santo Antonio, Portugal
Jukka Keskisalo does not intend to give any of his opponents a head start in next Sunday's Finnish cross-country championships in Imatra. Quite the contrary - the European Champion at the 3000 metres steeplechase has been preparing for the upcoming track season full of vim and vigour.
Keskisalo has been honing up his speed work with a month-long training camp in Santo Antonio, on the border between Portugal and Spain, east of Faro. By contrast with last year, he has chosen deliberately to train at sea level rather than at altitude.
This year Keskisalo has enjoyed exceptionally good opportunities to train practically throughout the winter. His shock win at the Gothenburg European Championships - where he floored the entire field with a last-to-first dash over the final 500 metres - guaranteed there would be no shortage of willing sponsorship partners, and the runner has no financial worries for the time being.
Keskisalo is now in the same caste as Lasse Viren and Juha Väätäinen were in their time, training much of the year abroad.
Väätäinen admittedly made it largely on guts and a prayer: he never had any money. He won the European Championship titles at 5000 metres and 10000 metres in Helsinki in 1971. Viren's exploits are of course the stuff of Olympic legend.
Where Juha Väätäinen existed - if we are to believe his biography - largely on baguettes and cheap Bordeaux, Jukka Keskisalo, who was voted Sports Personality of the Year in 2006, can enjoy the good life in Santo Antonio, and make sure his hunger is limited to an appetite for winning races.
"I'm in the fortunate position of being able to head off abroad for the winter training season. Many others would like to do the same, but cannot", says Keskisalo after returning from his day's 25-kilometre outing.
Keskisalo had a nasty jolt at the end of December, learning the hard way about the downsides of being a long-distance runner in the Finnish winter. He took a spill on his normal training run and broke his wrist.
"It's a blessing nothing happened to my legs."
He spent the next six weeks running in South Africa with his arm in plaster. Since his legs came out of the tumble unscathed, in the end he didn't miss a single day of road or track training.
In the pictures sent back to Finland, Keskisalo is seen running in a shirt beaing a Perlos logo. Perlos remain one of the runner's principal sponsors, even though the company, which makes plastic components for the mobile phone industry, announced massive job cuts during the winter months.
The situation with Perlos did not go down well in Keskisalo's home region of Northern Karelia. Perlos has factories in Kontiolahti and in his home town of Joensuu, and both are now scheduled for closure, with 1,200 production jobs on the line.
Keskiksalo only wants to speak in public about his sporting activities, and will not comment on the Perlos matters.
"Though it was a big thing, there's no getting away from that."
But big things are happening in sport, too. Keskisalo is looking forward eagerly to some tough international races this summer. Only in these events with a guaranteed strong field will it be possible for him to mount a decent assault on Tapio Kantanen's venerable Finnish record for the 3000 metres steeplechase.
Kantanen posted a Finnish best of 8:12.60 at the Montreal Olympics of 1976, when he finished just outside the medals in 4th.
Keskisalo's own personal best of 8:16.74 dates from last August at the GP meet in Zurich, just a week after his triumph in Gothenburg.
"If the pacing of that race had been a bit different I was in the sort of shape then to take the Finnish record", he says.
This year in Zurich there will be an interesting experiment in force, as there will be a total ban on the use of "rabbits" or pacemakers in the track events.
Such an experiment may hamper the quest for records and fast times, but then again the competitions will become a good deal more exciting and unpredictable than the often dull sight of a series of sacrificial pacemakers leading the runners around before the star of the show decides it is time to let rip and beat the clock.
Keskisalo does not expect the change to have any great impact on his own performance, since "I'm not usually the one choosing the pace anyhow".
He has already pencilled in a number of other engagements in his international race calendar for 2007: the Paris Golden League meet on July 6th and the Stockholm GP on August 7th are both definites.
The season's climax will naturally be at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan, in the last week of August. The 3000 metres steeplechase final is scheduled for August 28th. The final will be in the evening, but the heats will be run two days earlier at 10:00 in the morning.
"I'll have to perform very well indeed just to secure a berth in the final", says Keskisalo, and points out pertinently that two years ago when the runners lined up in Helsinki for the World Championships final, as many as eight of them hailed originally from Kenya.
Helsinki will not be arranging the traditional GP event this summer, because it has not been drawing in enough spectators of late. Timing is crucial in such gatherings, in order to secure a strong entry-list and pull in the crowds.
This year, as it happens, things might have been different, as there are a clutch of Finnish performers at the top level to attract the local audience.
But arranging a GP meet is expensive, because the IAAF demands that there are a prescribed number of international athletes present. Usually the organisers' budget goes mainly to meeting their requirements.
Keskisalo has been pondering the suggestion put forward in some circles whereby there would be a separate GP track and field meeting for European athletes only.
Doesn't this smack a little bit of sports racism?
"Maybe a bit, yes. The whole idea is in conflict with the basic premise that all the best competitors should be on the starting line. So I'm not sure such restrictions are a very good idea."
Then again, he is not altogether comfortable with the idea that Europe finances the GP events but the prize money all goes to Africa or North America.
Keskisalo has put in his hardest training sessions on the track in Santo Antonio. Other training has been on the jogging paths of the nearby woods, the profiles of which are astonishingly similar to the course for the upcoming Finnish cross-country championships in Imatra, so he says with a grin.
In other words, his adversaries on Sunday had better be warned: he will not be turning up just for a pipe-opener and a breath of air.
Jukka Keskisalo's track season will get going with a 3000 metres run - on the flat - at the end of this month at the old Eläintarha arena behind the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 15.5.2007
Note: Rather as was hinted in the article above, Jukka Keskisalo put his more than 100 days of training abroad to good use in the Finnish cross-country championships on Sunday. He dominated the 4-kilometre race from start to finish, and when he started asking questions of the other runners at the 3km mark, he had no difficulty in holding off the challenge from Jussi Utriainen (2nd) and Janne Ukonmaanaho (3rd). The former marathon runner Utriainen was admittedly giving Keskisalo a bit of an advantage: shortly before the 4-kilometre race, he had taken his 6th championship title in the 12-kilometre event.
More on this subject:
 WHO? Jukka Keskisalo
Previously in HS International Edition:
European Champion Jukka Keskisalo chosen Sports Personality of the Year (21.12.2006)
Sporting heroes with their lives in order (22.8.2006)
Chain oil and Tummeli, please (15.8.2006)
Jukka Keskisalo storms to surprise European gold in 3000 metres steeplechase (11.8.2006)
ARI PUSA / Helsingin Sanomat
ari.pusa@sanoma.fi
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| 22.5.2007 - THIS WEEK |
Jukka Keskisalo shifts gears towards the summer's track challenges
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