Today, studio broadcasts are the most essential part of Urheilu’s large TV productions. In this field, Tapio Suominen did enormous pioneering work, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen
24.7. 19:09•Updated 24.7. 19:23
A heavy silence descended on Urheilu’s offices in the media center of the Paris Olympic Games during the opening of the Games on Friday. A news member who has been a valued member of the work community for three decades (1988-2018). Tapio Suominen the departure was a shocking bombshell. Suominen passed away on Wednesday in Parola at the age of 60 – on the same day that the sporting events of the Paris Games started under the banner of Suominen’s beloved football.
Although the bubble of one person’s social media is a modest sample of reality, Suominen experienced its last renaissance during the European football championships that ended on July 14, when Urheilu’s broadcasts included plenty of nostalgic pieces of old European final tournaments with commentary.
The X-bubble was amazed
In my own X-bubble, the Finnish sports media consumers of the heaviest series praised without restraint how the commentary of one professional in particular had stood up brilliantly to the time that, for example, two decades had passed since the 2004 European Championships. There was a great sadness in the air.
This person was Tapio Suominen, who at the time of these games in Portugal was in the process of telling his life story.
In X, he was missed, appreciated without inhibition, admired.
When Suomisen himself was asked about the star moments of his long career as a reporter-narrator, there were enough of them from the newsroom to the point of lack of abundance. Usain Bolt’s ME artillery on the Olympic and World Cup tracks, Zinedine Zidane’s the final match of the career, i.e. the 2006 World Cup final or Iivo Niskanen first personal value race win 2017.
A timeless legend
Even though Suominen, who anchored countless sports screens, also as a commentator belonged to the same large series as, for example Pentti Salmi, Juha Jokinen, Hannu-Pekka Hänninen or Blacksmith Isthmusthe most enduring legend of him became the background of live narrations.
Suominen played a key role when studios for television sports broadcasts began to be built in Finland in the 1990s. In this job, Suominen, who was trained in sports, had a pleasant voice and had a journalistic quick wit, was downright a natural talent. Descendants bow deeply.
For example, the hockey World Cup studios are very fondly remembered, where Suominen was not afraid to challenge his guests sharply. Finnish cross-country skiers also left Suominen’s sofa with red cheeks when the doping disaster in cross-country skiing materialized in Lahti in 2001.
Now the studios with their managers and experts are a completely organic part of the concepts of Urheilu and also commercial operators.
This was certainly not the case when Suominen started his pioneering work at Yles.
Suominen did the last service of his life to Finnish mental health work. The storyteller legend, who battled with bipolar disorder, removed the stigma from the matter by throwing himself completely into that task as well.