Many remember Eduard Hämäläinen. Through his great-grandfather, who moved from Joroi to Russia, the Finnish-born 10-match star was quickly granted the right to represent Finland in 1997.
In 1997, in Athens, Finland would have missed out on a World Championship medal in athletics for the first time without Hämäläi, who had already won his third World Cup silver, and settled in Kuortane with his family.
The transfer of Hämäläinen’s rights, who represented no less than four countries in his career, i.e. the Soviet Union, the CIS, Belarus and Finland, was negotiated smoothly between the Finnish and Belarusian athletics federations.
A truckload of domestically produced pole and high jump racks and abseiling mattresses left Finland for Minsk. In the return mail, a world-class athlete traveled to Finland, who in 1998 still achieved silver at the European Championships in Budapest and also represented Finland at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
The interesting thing was that only in Sydney did Hämäläinen have a Finnish passport in his pocket, which he got in the summer of 2000. In 1997–99 he represented Finland as a citizen of Belarus.
– Times and practices have changed since then, recalls the former CEO of Urheiluliito, who negotiated Hämäläinen’s transfer and a former 10-man competitor Jarmo Mäkelä.
Now the world would once again have an all-rounder with tremendous potential, much stronger than Hämälä, who would be welcomed into the Finnish national team. But who, at least for the time being, has locked himself into another country’s military guide.
Turning 19 in October Tomas Järvinen won the 19-year-old 10-match WC gold last Friday in Peru with a wild 8425-point pot, which was only 10 points short of the ME result of the series. For competitors in this age group, the puck weighs 1.75 kilograms (adults 2 kilograms), the ball 6 kilograms (7.26 kilograms), and the speed fences are 100 centimeters (106.70 cm).
At the peak of adulthood already in 2025?
– A year from now in Tokyo, Tomas will realistically be fighting for an adult WC medal, predicts the athlete’s father, well-known match coach and athletics figure Mika Järvinen.
He is known e.g. of the three-time world champion, ME man Tomas Dvorak too as a coach. Dvorak, on the other hand, represented the same country and even the same club as Tomas Järvinen now: the Czech Republic and Dukla Praha.
Tomas Järvinen, considered one of the most talented junior athletes in the world, was born in Prague from the union of Mika Järvinen and his Czech spouse at the time. In Finland, the competitor representing Lahti Ahkera is coached in Prague Josef Karas and his own father in another home country, who also acts as his son’s manager.
From 2014 to 2024, Tomas Järvise has dozens of statistical entries from various competitions held in Finland. He has a Finnish passport, Finnish siblings from his father’s new union, a second home in Finland, Finnish language skills and even a Finnish club.
Against this background, it would be logical that Tomas Järvinen, if he wanted to, could change his representation rights from the Czech Republic to Finland as a matter of notification.
– It’s not up to us. We would absolutely love to have him in our ranks, says the chairman of the Sports Association Riikka Pakarinen.
One of the leading data and rules experts in the world of athletics Mirko Jalava however, the enthusiasm is overwhelming. According to the current rules, representing the Czech Republic already at the youth competition level locks the right to international representation in adult athletics as well.
For example, in football, the lock clicks closed only when the athlete has played in four matches in the prestigious adult competitions or the qualifiers aimed at them.
– Järvinen has represented the Czech Republic, so a possible exchange of representation rights would go through the process planned for this by World Athletics (International Athletics Federation), says Jalava.
Järvinen’s first international representation task coincided with the 2023 European Under-18 Championships; that’s when he competed in the high jump. That competition also determined his right to international representation.
Due to the athlete shopping practiced by certain countries, such as Bahrain, Qatar and Turkey, World Athletics has tightened its policy so that, in principle, the right of representation can only be obtained three years after giving up the previous one.
A concrete example of this was given at the Olympic Games in Paris. Number one in the women’s discus throw world statistics, Cuban Yaime Perez missed the Games. He defected to the USA in 2022 and is thus free to represent another country only next year.
The International Athletics Federation is also struggling with representation rights Antti Pihlakoskiwho sits on the organization’s board. Pihlakoski tells Urheilu that the starting point is always a three-year wait, but there are exceptions.
For good reasons
– The time can be shortened for pressing reasons, Pihlakoski states.
In the case of Tomas Järvinen, such a compelling reason would be, for example, moving permanently to a Finnish family and starting studies or military service in Finland.
– If life and sports in the Czech Republic continue unchanged, such a pressing reason cannot be considered to exist, says Pihlakoski.
Mika Järvinen insists that he does not want to speak through his son’s mouth, and according to the father, the two haven’t discussed the issue of representation nationality. Mika Järvinen considers changing the right of representation to be an unlikely, but not completely impossible scenario.
– The decision and the right to speak belongs to Tomas. The most important thing is, of course, that the young man gets to realize his dreams to the maximum in the best possible environment, says isä-Järvinen.
– However, I guarantee that medals and top results would not be missed because Tomas would train in Finland or represent Finland. In terms of financing his career, a very large sponsorship package could be built for him in Finland.
Mika Järvinen says that it would hardly help the matter even if the representation collar were shortened to, for example, one year.
– Even that would be a very long time for a hungry guy of that age. One on top of outdoor track value races and indoor value races.
A big difference in cultures
This means that Tomas Järvinen should even consider the matter if there is no break in representation at all. Even that is not completely excluded in World Athletics’ practices in an exceptional situation.
Let’s come to another matter, i.e. the comparison of Czech and Finnish multi-match cultures.
Triple world champion Dvorak, the first in 10-match history to exceed 9,000 points and an Olympic champion Roman Sebrle as well as the Czech Republic’s third all-time Robert Zmelik (8627 points) have all represented Dukla Praha, like Järvinen. By all accounts, the framework for glory is in order.
In Finland, on the other hand, the 10-match has long been a downright crisis sport; this season, only four Finnish men have exceeded 7000 and 12 raiders have exceeded 6000 points.
In January, Järvinen will start working at Dukla Praha, which practically means professional, paid match training. Even though it is an army sports club, its representatives are no longer obliged to perform conscript service in the Czech Republic.