– Does this really make any sense?
Quick beeper Annimari Korte has always liked the coach Mikael Ylöstaloa “as the voice of reason”. On Tuesday afternoon, this voice of reason asks an athlete at the Leppävaara stadium a question that can be characterized as mostly rhetorical.
Korte, who arrived in Espoo with a slight optimism, has received blunt feedback from the last training session before the weekend match against Sweden. An injury to the foreleg, i.e. the buttock area of the left side, cannot withstand hurdles.
Now we will find out if the injury is in the muscle or the tendon. Korte does not dare to straighten his left leg for fear of renewing the tear, let alone hit it on the track in such a way that the performance would continue to be effective. Full-speed pulls of a few fences from the racks fail time after time.
Ylöstalo succinctly states that it is not a surprise of any kind. However, Korte tries with the fuzzy logic of elite sports, where a new day is always a new opportunity. Strong pain medication could help, but in the worst case scenario, the preparation for next season would start with months of rehabilitation after a large tear and, at worst, surgery.
Korte, 35, who will say goodbye to his hurdles career in the fall of 2024, definitely does not want that, because the goal is to be in the best shape of his career at the European Championships in Rome next June. The result limit has already been made.
After the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021, Kortte underwent extensive operations on his back thighs, and the rehabilitation was an absolutely frantic job. Nothing even resembling it is attractive.
One drunk
Now the woman selected for the Sweden national team is sitting on the blue running track in Leppävaara and crying out of frustration. The upper house stands next to it like a sphinx; words would be useless. Vilma Mäki will soon receive a call from the Sports Association and the information that already the third captain of the veteran section – Korte, Lotta Harala and Nooralotta Neziri – is the strength of the classic national match outside and the place is his.
– If you’re trying to understand this for people, then when I’m healthy and in top condition, the performance is a high for me from the starting shot, which I don’t remember anything about at the finish line. Completely as if an unconscious performance. Now I think about every step and the amount of pain and I don’t dare. The difference is like night and day, Korte explains.
A good two hours later, he arrives with his huskies Tokyo and Cairo for the arranged interview in Paloheina, Helsinki, already completely calmed down.
A long call from the doctor of the national athletics team Ilkka Räsänen with has convinced him that if the inflammatory state of the ischial tubercle area – and thus the tendency to rupture – settles down within a month, the Masters class, i.e. the European Championships for over 35-year-olds in Pescara, Italy, would be just within the limits of possibilities.
– I have such a bucket list mentality. Adult Championship gold, victory in the Sweden match, Olympic and European Championships, World Championship semi-final place. There are still missing better rankings in the European Championship and Olympic Games and the European Championship and World Championship gold in the masters.
A fateful chain of events
Today, Korte wants to talk about more than hurdles, but in order to put the other things in the background, it is necessary to review the chain of events that ruined the rest of the season that is now ending.
It started promisingly, to say the least, because already by June 11, the digitals had broken five times under 13 seconds and at their best in 12.83 seconds. It was clearly the best start to the season of his career, and Korte calculated that when everything came down to it, a starting time of 12.60 would be completely possible.
– Then in Jyväskylä I hit my hand on a fence so that the tendon in the thumb area tore. After that, there was a ligament tear in the ankle, which got worse in PNG (Turku 13.6.). A few days after that, I fell down and sprained my ankle, and at the same time I got a tear in the ischial region. It came to a different area than the one that My favorite Lasse got fit after the Tokyo Olympics.
Korte has not been able to compete at full strength with the rip, as the rip, which was thought to have settled at times, has always been renewed at the first fences.
From the beginning of the season, Korte did not go abroad to chase the ranking points that entitle him to the World Championships. A large number of Finnish athletes from vastly lower world statistics positions than him made it to the Games. He has spoken publicly about the fairness of the ranking system and the way hurdlers are treated.
– On Some, the feedback that I wouldn’t dare to compete has surprised me a lot. Yes, it’s so bad that I don’t dare not to go compete, if I can somehow manage to avoid taking completely absurd health risks. Every absence from the final costs me thousands of euros in partners’ bonuses and starting money. They are very significant amounts.
Why always me?
After the Kaleva Games in Lahti at the end of July, Korte began to seriously think about why he has been an athlete particularly prone to various accidents and concussions throughout his career.
Why do university studies abroad require an effort that sometimes seems impossible? Why do you forget things and in the middle of a sentence you can’t remember where the sentence started?
Where does the occasional insomnia, bad anxiety, depression and panic attacks come from? Why did that pot stay on the hot stove again?
Korte admits that sometimes he has even forgotten to update the Adams application that maintains the athletes’ location system for doping testers. He may have accidentally been somewhere other than where he promised the testers to be at a certain time.
Of course, this sometimes happens to very many top athletes; a career-long clean sheet is even a rarity. Only the third absence from the agreed testing place within 12 months can lead to an investigation as to whether it is a doping violation.
Korte shows the statement he received from a private doctor’s office on his phone: Perturbatio activitasis et attentionis. Diagnosis: Certain or probable. Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, i.e. ADHD, a disorder of activity and attention.
– This expert doctor’s opinion has been a huge relief, because so many things in my life and my past immediately got a logical explanation. Incidentally, one of the symptoms of ADHD is a person’s tendency to be open about their own health issues, among other things. However, I want to talk about this publicly and remove the stigma, encourage people to investigate the matter if they have even a little doubt, says Korte, who started medication a few weeks ago.
– I want to share these things also because I might be able to help and encourage others in the same situation. You can always send messages if you need support.
ADHD is primarily thought to be a syndrome of hyperactive boys, and that is why it apparently often goes undetected in girls.
The medication has been started with a preparation that is allowed by the anti-doping rules. Several ADHD drugs are prohibited in terms of their content during the competition season and therefore require a dispensation from anti-doping supervisor Suek. One is in the works.
ADHD syndrome is one of those diseases where you can even lightheartedly play around when a person forgets something important or is otherwise careless. However, according to the website of the Duodecim medical association, the syndrome is no joke.
– Substance abuse disorders, risk of accidents, problems in relationships, studies, work, increased risk of being marginalized and so on, Korte lists.
He believes that without sports, he would have been much less successful in the rest of his life.
– It has brought a regular structure to life, within which to act safely. It has also absorbed a lot of energy from me that I could have used to my detriment.
The cloud’s silver lining
There is also a silver lining to the cloud.
– This is associated with the ability to hyperfocus and a state where you can lose everything else around you. It has probably been beneficial from the point of view of competition.
The most famous person diagnosed with ADHD in Finnish sports history was the mountain legend who passed away in 2019 Matti Nykänenwhose career and life stages Korte has gotten to know mostly through reading.
– Now that you say it, it’s completely logical.
After receiving the diagnosis, Korte opened up about it to a few of his athlete friends. One comment still makes him laugh; it became a runner Sara from Lappalainen (previously Landscape), who is a straightforward type of person:
– Sara said that “that has always been clear to everyone”.