Statistics promise Finland just one medal from IAAF World Championships

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The 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics begin in Berlin tomorrow and run for just over a week, and if the world statistics for the season so far are to be believed, Finland's contingent can expect to bring home no more than one medal.
      This will come from the men's javelin, where Tero Pitkämäki is currently 3rd in the world rankings. Pitkämäki is also the reigning World Champion, having taken gold in Osaka two years ago as Finland's only medallist.
     
The Finnish athletics authorities do not set quite so much store by statistics, and have set as their target for the games two medals and two further placings "in the points", in other words in the top eight.
      At least in the light of the numbers, the United States should clean up in the medals table. If everything pans out by the form-book, their athletes would pick up 25 medals in Germany, ahead of Russia (18) and Kenya (13).
      The sprinting superpower that is Jamaica are currently being offered 12 medals by the statisticians, with 100m and 200m world-record holder Usain Bolt expected to add to his haul of three Olympic golds from Beijing. In Osaka two years ago, Bolt got a silver in the 200 metres and was part of the Jamaican silver medal team in the 4 x 100m relay.
     
The IAAF World Championships are held every second year. This time around the games will be staged in the refurbished 74,845-seat Olympiastadion, site of the 1936 Olympics, and over 2,100 athletes from 202 countries are scheduled to take part.
      Helsinki has hosted the event twice - the inaugural competition was held here in 1983, and the World Championships made a return in a very rainy August 2005, when Finland could do no better than one bronze medal.
     
The games will be covered extensively on Finnish television, on YLE's TV2. HD broadcasts using an international signal with Finnish commentary will also be available via Canal+, Elisa, and DNA.


Links:
  IAAF World Championships in atletics, Berlin, Aug. 15-23, 2009
  2009 World Championships in Athletics (Wikipedia)

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