The career of swimmer Hanna-Maria Hintsa, who has turned 40, should be taken as a model. The top performance of the Olympians has received little attention, writes Urheilu’s Joel Sippola.
Joel Sippola sports reporter
Four merit races. One medal.
That’s the balance of Finnish competitive swimming in this year’s prestige games. He was responsible for the only medal Veera Kivirinta with his silver medal in the 50-meter breaststroke of the long-course European Championships.
In the World Short Course Championships, which ended on Sunday, the youngsters Laura Lahtinen and Tomas Koski raised promises for the future in their final places, but there is still a long way to go to the world’s absolute elite.
Success even in a short course is great, but more important are swimming competitions in the 50-meter course (in the Olympic pool).
A harsh situation emerged at the Paris Olympics.
Only two Finns in the Games. Neither in the top 16.
An underrated Olympic performance
At the time of the Short Course World Championships, there was a glimpse of the old successful moments of Finnish swimming, when the 2003 world champion Hanna-Maria Hintsa turned 40 years old.
When the most wonderful moments of Finnish swimming are remembered, they are always highlighted Jani Sievinen and Antti Kasvion successful years from the 1990s. In the Finnish sports discussion, the achievements of Hintsa, who has turned years, are overshadowed.
With his victory 21 years ago, Keravalaistainen is still the previous world champion of Finnish swimming, including the short and long course World Championships. The World Championship gold just on the 50-meter track elevates Hintsa to the brightest caste of all in Finnish swimming.
It wasn’t about any individual top success, because between 2003 and 2016, a total of 17 medals were won.
Hintsa was in the best shape of his career in 2008, when he won medals in, for example, three prestigious competitions. Seven of the ten fastest times in the 100-meter freestyle in their main course come from that season.
From that year is one of the hardest achievements of Hintsa’s career, fourth place at the Beijing Olympics.
The achievement in question in a global sport like swimming was very tough. Not to mention that the 100-meter freestyle is one of the most prestigious distances in the sport.
In Finland, only medals are good, but in the Paris Olympics, for example, which went poorly, the result in question would clearly have been Finland’s best performance.
Hintsa herself knows how to appreciate her Olympic performance.
– I personally rate fourth place at the Olympics on the same line as the world championship. However, the Olympics are only once every four years. There has been tremendous pressure and tough competitors next to me, but I still managed to finish fourth, Hintsa commented to Urheilu a year ago.
The peak moment of my career at a young age
There are two features in Hintsa’s career that are worth thinking about in Finnish elite sports.
First of all, he threw himself fully into elite sports. In the case of young Hintsa, it meant that all the bangs were swimming. Studying had to wait. After his swimming career, he trained as a doctor.
This is not to say that current Finnish athletes do not invest properly in elite sports. Studying provides a good counterbalance to sports. Getting to the very sharpest peak still often requires compromises. A sports career is short, so you should make the most of it while it’s still possible.
Nowadays, it is typical in Finnish top sports to think that the absolute top of one’s sport can be reached at a later age. Of course it’s possible, like the biathlete who just turned 30 and achieved his first World Cup podium finish Suvi Minkkinen example shows.
However, many foreign top names are at the top of their sports from a very young age. For example, Norwegian track and field athletes Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Sweden Armand Duplantis reached their adult peak at the age of 17–18.
Hintsa showed 21 years ago when he won the World Championship gold that a Finn can be the best in his sport even at a very young age. Hintsa was 18 years old.