Finland’s success in the World Indoor Championships has remained incredibly weak compared to the European Championship achievements. Wilma Murro is expected to make history in Glasgow, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
will show the World Athletics Indoor Championships on its channels and follow the competitions moment by moment on its website from March 1st to 3rd. You can find shipping information at this link.
A running legend SpongeBob Nurmi belongs to Turku’s historical characters and monuments. In the same city, the pole vaulter is also affected Wilma Murtowhich was born a quarter of a century after Nurmi’s passing.
During this year, Murro will have an excellent opportunity to do something that Nurmi was able to do as the previous Finnish track and field athlete, 96 years ago. He ran for three medals from the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.
Since then, the Finnish track and field athlete has at best achieved two prestigious medals in one calendar year.
In the name of moderation, 2024 will also open up three opportunities for Murro – the World Indoor Championships, the European Championships and the Olympic Championships – when the king of runners only got to troll prestigious waters once in four years.
Hardest place right away
Oddly enough, looking at history, Murto is at its toughest this weekend, when the World Indoor Championships medals are handed out in Glasgow, Scotland. Finnish women have been awarded even gold medals in the World Championships and Olympic Games in outdoor tracks, but not once during the tradition of the World Indoor Championships, which began in 1985.
In general, the only time Finland has left the Games as a medalist was in 1995, when Mika Halvari spun the shot put gold medal in Barcelona. In the all-time medal statistics, Finland ranks 57th with Costa Rica among others, behind every Nordic country except Iceland. As a curious fact, it should be mentioned that Iceland’s number of medals is also higher than Finland’s.
With twelve gold medals, Sweden is the top ten in terms of its jumpers, ie Stefan Holmin, by Kajsa Bergqvist, by Christian Olsson and Armand I would double plant thanks to.
The contrast is absolutely amazing when you compare the balance with how Finland has performed in the European Indoor Championships, whose tradition is a couple of decades older than the World Championships. 12 golds, 9 silvers and 14 bronzes have been raked home. Six of the medal winners are women, almost a third.
On the other hand, World Championship-level indoor track and field performance can be quite coldly reflected in these statistics: between 1985 and 2023, Finnish women have won one medal in the sports included in the indoor track program at the Olympic Games and the World Championships on outdoor tracks. It was Wilma Murto who took the bronze last summer in Budapest.
Javelin world record
Track and field is one of the most popular sports in Finland by all tracking metrics. However, the state of traditional indoor sports is at least interesting, and the history of the World Cup in Finland can be considered a direct consequence.
Of course, the most successful traditional sport, the javelin, is not an indoor sport, even though its ME indoor thrower is Matti Närhi.
A large number of stars preparing for the summer games will miss out on the Glasgow Games, but for example Karsten Warholm, Femke Bol, Gudaf Tsegay, Laura Muir, Jaroslava Mahučih, Noah Lyles, Grant Holloway and Murto and his chief adjutants are responsible for the high level of entertainment.
World records in indoor athletics can be found among other figures such as Wilson Kipketer, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Javier SotomayorDuplantis, Ashton Eaton, Carl Lewis, Ryan Crouser, Gail Devers, Yulimar Rojas or Brittney Reeseso competing under the roof at the absolute top of the sport enjoys and has enjoyed some kind of appreciation.
Poor infra
During its history, the EC Indoor Championships have been organized in 17 countries and the World Indoor Championships in 14 countries. None of these is Finland, which in these 58 years has been the host of the European Championships or World Championships on outdoor tracks five times.
This does not mean that indoor athletics is particularly disparaged in Finland. Above all, it reveals how miserable the situation is from the point of view of the infrastructure of international indoor athletics. You can’t even imagine a single championship-level indoor arena as a value competition stage.
In Finland, indoor sports have never been held in such a great setting as in Turku Areena on February 14, when PNG Tailored an international one-sport event for Murro. It wasn’t much, but it could be a start.
In the country, several different large-arena projects are leaning on starting scaffolds even at the moment. Hopefully the athletics influencers are awake and lobby for their cause already in the planning phase, preferably today.
will show the World Athletics Indoor Championships on its channels and follow the competitions moment by moment on its website from March 1st to 3rd. You can find shipping information at this link.