Only 22 years old Arvi Savolainen a medal at the Tokyo Olympics 2021 would still have been a surprise, but it came close. Savolainen led the bronze match against Iran Mohammad Hari Saravia against two minutes before the end, but then the physics ran out and with it the sharpest wrestling sense.
– Then it turned out to be an ugly read (2-9 loss), Savolainen recalled on Thursday morning in the wrestling hall of the Urhea Academy in Helsinki, with an empty stomach.
The shift included a day off from wrestling and side training. Even before Savolai, the other core group of the Olympic team had been training, ie Jonni Sarkkinen, Matias Lipasti mixed Toni Metsomäki. Sarkkinen and Savolainen will compete in the Olympic Games in Paris starting on August 6, but representative-level men Metsomäki and Lipasti will go to the competition city as usual for the two. Metsomäki already went to Tokyo in 2021 to help Savolainen.
– Toni knows the tricks of many of my Olympic opponents, and we can then go through them in training, says Savolainen.
When Urheilu hands Savolainen a paper printout to analyze, which contains 16 Olympic athletes of the 97 kg Greco-Roman wrestling category, Metsomäki didn’t have to learn the moves of one of the ones originally on the list.
Savolainen took his Olympic place with chalk lines, on May 10 at the qualifying tournament in Istanbul. There were three Olympic spots available in the 97-kilogram category, the first two of which went to the top two, i.e. Savolainen and the Russian, i.e. “independent” To Artur Sargsian.
German instead of Russian
– A guy I’ve known since boyhood. We wrestled against each other already as cadets (under 17 years old) and since then we have been in the same competitions many times, says Savolainen.
The third favorite wrestler of the Olympic lottery was Kyrgyz Uzur Dzhuzupbekov.
But when the Olympic tournament was so-called locked in terms of participants some time ago, Sargsian was replaced by a German Lucas Lazogianiswhich the Russian won in Istanbul.
The international wrestling federation United World Wrestling is one of the umbrella organizations that, despite the war in Ukraine, allows athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in the games, regardless of country.
– When the Russians returned to the World Championships in 2023, they didn’t get a single Olympic place for the Greco-Roman, but later they did take places, says Savolainen.
In the qualifying tournament in Istanbul alone, the Russians achieved seven representation places in different wrestling forms, but in the end it was decided in Moscow that not a single Russian wrestler would be seen in Paris. The International Olympic Committee had previously closed the road to the neck twisters of the eastern neighbor, e.g. because of these formal military professions or sympathies for the war in Ukraine.
In the two previous games, i.e. in Tokyo and 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Russian wrestlers achieved a total of eight golds and 17 medals.
The only wrestler from Belarus
In Tokyo 2021, Savolainen’s weight class was won by Russia Musa Yevloyev, which is therefore not included. The only wrestler in the entire Olympic tournament without a country symbol is from Belarus Abubakar Haslakhanou, just in Savolainen’s series. He belongs to the opponents, about which the Ahkera school in Lahti does not have much prior knowledge.
Savolainen examines the athlete guard of his series and does a little math:
– Seven of these I have won at least once. I have lost to five at least once. So it’s a very even group.
When Urheilu asks Savolainen to list his favorites, he states that the task is quite difficult due to the uniformity of the athletes.
– Armenia (Artur Aleksanyan), Cuba (Gabriel Rosillo) and Iran (Mohammad Hari Saravi) are probably some kind of favorite trio.
In Tokyo, Savolainen lost to the reigning Olympic champion at the time, Aleksanyan, who took silver in the tournament, and Hari Saravi is now also among the medalists. Six of the 16 men who sweated at 97 kilograms in Tokyo are now admiring the Grand Palais Ephemere as wrestlers.
Although Savolainen belongs to the world elite in his category, in the junior classes historical Finnish success the forged athlete has “only” achieved one EC silver in the general series, in 2022. The lightning development was interrupted in 2021-2022, when Savolainen first had a heart operation to correct arrhythmias and then a wrist injury that required a really long and patient rehabilitation became his companion.
“It has not left my mouth”
Because of all the adversities, the importance of the Paris Olympics to Savolainen has risen to the height of the Eiffel Tower. The athlete was megalomaniacally disappointed when the Olympic place was not secured at the World Championships in Belgrade last September. In wrestling circles, it was even whispered that if Savolainen had not made it to Paris, he would have had a career in the demanding sport and focused on studying economics at Aalto University. There, the athlete has a place to study.
Savolainen listens to the theory with amusement:
– It is not a rumor that started from my mouth. Of course, the mood would have been in autumn on the ground if this had happened.
Savolainen, as well as sweating at the same time on the judo court located behind the partition Martti Puumalainenis part of a team of elite athletes who have been hired by Puolustusvoimat at the Sports School in Santahamina for temporary sports non-commissioned officer vacancies.
– We go to work in Santahamina, we train and in the evenings we pile on our studies at our own pace, Savolainen maps out the time of year when the trees start to drop leaves again.
In wrestling, the World Championships are not organized in the fall of the Olympic years. The year 2021 and the World Championships in Oslo were an exception, as the Tokyo Games had to be played already in 2020.
No worries about the scale disappearing
When a wrestler prepares for the Olympic Games, and there are less than three weeks before the real action begins, they usually already have a very strict diet, especially in weight classes. First, fats are burned, and at the competition site the scales are cleared by controlling fluid intake, if necessary very bluntly.
This does not apply to Savoia, and for example Jarkko Ala-Huikun The Via Dolorosa towards the London Olympic Games 2012 is completely unexplored ground for the man from Nastola. On Thursday, the weight was about one hundred kilos.
– As a wrestler, I have such an inverse problem that the weight does not accumulate, but on the contrary, it easily wants to fall too low. So you have to make sure that you eat properly all the time. There’s nothing to worry about with the scale, so there’s one less thing to stress about.
Among Painiliitto’s coaches, e.g., are going to Paris. Marko Yli-Hannuksela, whose silver medal in Athens 2004 is Finland’s most recent Olympic athlete. Is it still August 7, when the 97-kilogrammen have finished wrestling in Paris?
– You’ll see it then, Savolainen states succinctly.