Finland won four medals from the Paris Paralympics, which ended at the weekend. The result fell short of the goal of six medals. Urheilu bundles the competitions with three lifts.
1. No stretches
Finland won four medals at the Paris Paralympics, all from the wheelchair curling side. Toni Piispanen was responsible for the silver place in the T51 category 200 meters and the bronze in the 100 meters. In the T54 class Leo-Pekka Tähti was third in the 100 meters and Amanda Kotaja with a corresponding medal position in the women’s 100.
Finland had a small team of 16 athletes in Paris. For example, just eight years ago there were 26 Finns in Rio de Janeiro, and 20 years ago in Athens there were as many as 54 athletes.
Worked as Urheilu’s expert at the Paralympics Tuomas Törrönen says that there were not many stretches in the Finnish team. A similar trend was already noticeable three years ago in Tokyo.
Finland was aiming for six medals in Paris. According to Törrönen, the overall rating of the team cannot be commendable. Törrönen works in the Paralympic Committee as a coaching manager.
– Such eight plus. Everyone tries to do their best, but such glorious successes and stretches were missing.
For one stretch, Törrönen brings up Toni Piispanen, who ended his career. Earlier in the summer, it wasn’t even certain whether Piispa would be seen at all in Paris, so the pot of two medals goes to the side of a clear top success.
Törrönen sees that the barrel was clearly left with a ball pusher Teijo Kööpikä despite fourth place. There were chances for a medal, but Kööpikkä fell behind with a result of 14.20, when the bronze was taken with a better result of about half a meter. The Finnish pusher has scored 14.80 at his best.
– I don’t know what was in the background of Kööpikä. Some injury or something? In terms of results, it was the weakest race of his career.
Below are the medal performances of the Finns:
2. Does Tapola bring relief?
There have been concerns about the situation of Finnish para sports, and especially in this case summer para sports. As it turned out earlier, the size of the team has been decreasing all the time.
– The situation is very alarming. The numbers show it, Paralympic Committee Sports Director Katja Saarinen granted to Urheilu before the Games.
Tähti and Piispanen competed in their last Paralympics in Paris. The duo, who brought a total of 13 summer medals to Finland, leaves a huge gap in Finnish summer para sports.
Törrönen is aware of the challenging situation, but he is still not super worried.
– If you think about the Paralympics of the 2030s, for example, you can’t expect any rain of medals. It’s quite clear. Individual peaks can still occur.
This is how he raises a table tennis player Only Tapolan and also an archer Jere Forsberg’swho was very close to the medal positions in Paris. The 30-year-old Forsberg already aimed for Olympic gold 12 years ago in London.
– Hopefully there will be Tapola, for example, from outside of athletics. It would seem that the Paralympics in Los Angeles will be in a class of their own, so he is an athlete with medal potential right away. He is top 2 in his class.
In the three previous summer games, Finnish para sports has been completely dependent on track and field athletes. We have to go to the 2012 Games, when Jere Forsberg, dressage rider Katja Karjalainen and goalball players also brought medals to Finland from outside athletics.
3. Incredible Uzbekistan
At the Paralympics, the incredible skill and capacity of numerous athletes in their sports was again amazing.
Töröse was greatly impressed by the track and field athletes of Uzbekistan. The country won a whopping 16 medals in the sport, eight of which were gold medals. Including all sports, Uzbekistan achieved 26 medals and was 13th in the medal table.
– It has been incredible in these games. It has also been noticeable at the para-athletics World Championships that they come with a big team. Uzbekistan has invested a lot in jumping and throwing sports. There is a lot of background group and fan group.
Finland’s ranking in the medal table is 71st. The overwhelming number one was again China, which grabbed 220 medals (94 gold, 76 silver and 50 bronze). Great Britain (49+44+31=124) and USA (36+42+27=105) came next in the table.
From the individual athletes, Törrönen raises a top Dutch coach from the athletics side Arno Mullin athletes of the training group. Amanda Kotaja also trains in the same group.
Swiss Catherine Debrunner rolled to four gold medals: 400 meters, 800 meters, 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters. He also took silver in the T53 class 100.
A Belgian of the same coach Lea Bayekula on the other hand, won two gold medals in sprints.
– Amanda was the weakest of the athletes in that group. For example, Bayekula has developed incredibly.