Heili Sirviö offered a wonderful show with her racing sisters. The Australian Olympic gold really leaves a great Finnish aftertaste, writes Roope Visuri.
Roope Visuriruheluth reporter
6.8. 21:50•Updated 6.8. 23:35
Paris Olympics on channels 26.7.–11.8. Go to the competition website here. You can find the entire program of the games here.
PARIS.
– When we were young, we didn’t get along so well. Of course we were friends, but also really competitive with each other. We pushed each other really hard. If he hadn’t been by my side, I wouldn’t be here. I only started to get better when she started putting me on a tight leash, the recent Olympic champion in the women’s park competition in skateboarding Arisa Trew beamed on Tuesday to Urheilu.
Can you guess who it is? Well, about the recent Finnish Olympic sensation Heili from Sirviö. 13-year-old Sirviö made history as the youngest Finnish Olympic athlete of all time and in a truly wonderful way.
Fifth place in a very great race. As the icing on the cake, his best friend won the Olympic gold Arisa Trewwhom Sirviö was among the first to congratulate.
Sirviöta was also coached by Trew’s coach towards the Olympics Trevor Ward. He and Heil’s father Fredrik Sirviö also jumped to hug each other.
Backstage in the interview area, the warm moments continued with, among other things, joint photos and new hugs.
So this Olympic gold had a real Finnish side flavor, when the 14-year-old Olympic champion had already shared recognition with Sirviö.
You rarely hear something like this from Finns, but now this happened. This was perhaps the most wonderful statement about a Finnish athlete of the Games, even though the Games are still a few days away.
At the press conference, perhaps the most globally known female athlete in the sport, from Great Britain Sky Brown. also gave honor to the Finn.
– He is really incredible. Young and talented, bronze medalist Brown boasted.
Towels for the race organizers
However, points cannot be given to the competition organizers. On the super day of Finnish-Australian friends, the journalists were offered a really funny fact.
In the journalists’ media room, the race organizers had raised a sports legend as a “fun fact”. Tony Hawk’s more than 20 concussions in his career.
– Tony Hawk experienced more than 20 concussions during his skating career. Some professional football players (ed. note American version) have retired after suffering two or three concussions. This huge number has not stopped Hawk from achieving everything in his career and it is incredible, the information shock described.
What’s so great about 20 concussions? Shouldn’t they get rid of them and not be considered funny? Even in a sport where the focus is currently on really young people, even children.
Even before the games, three things stood out about today’s competitors. One, of course, was their age.
Heili Sirviö was the youngest of the finalists and the youngest ever Finnish athlete at the Olympics. China’s 11-year-old Haohao Zheng was instead the youngest ever Olympic athlete since the first modern Olympics in 1896.
Most of the youngest athletes at these Olympics were specifically skateboarders.
Another thing was serious injuries, which young athletes have already experienced. Perhaps the most recent example is the British superteen Sky Brown. In Great Britain, his recovery was highly anticipated after dislocating his shoulder for the Games.
The wait was rewarded with a bronze medal, even though the announcer of the event had time to worry about the condition of Brown’s shoulder after the falls during the qualifying and final. Many of the young people who competed on Tuesday had some kind of bigger injury in the background.
The third thing was how many of the competitors were inspired by skateboarding after the historic first skateboarding competitions in Tokyo. In many preliminary stories about the athletes, it was also highlighted how the women’s park has been very popular all over the world.
It was also shown in the last round of the finals in Paris, when one athlete after another did amazing tricks. The audience lived strongly with the young women.
Why wasn’t the latter brought up? Why was the darker side of the sport relished instead?
It’s hard to understand the train of thought, although of course Tony Hawk as a sports legend is an interesting name. It would also have been interesting for journalists to hear the facts, what the boom actually means in light of the numbers.
The Paris Olympics have been hailed as historic, because for the first time in the history of the Olympics, there are equal numbers of female and male athletes.
On the athletics side, however, we saw a deservedly criticized moment. The men’s 100 meters was anticipated with a great light show.
The fastest woman in the world was searched for on the same trip with much more modest expenses. Words and actions don’t seem to match now, even though equality is being celebrated in Paris.