Even though Matti Mattsson doesn’t set his retirement in stone, the air is full of nostalgia for a career that is already ending. Porilainen’s legacy has been wasted, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
Paris Olympics on channels 26.7.–11.8. Go to the competition website here. You can find the entire program of the games here.
PARIS. Matti Mattsson31 years old in October, will definitely jump into the Olympic pool for at least the third time in his career on Tuesday in the session starting at 12 o’clock Finnish time, which includes the 200-meter breaststroke.
If Mattsson’s last Olympic swims also end already on Tuesday, it is not a bad estimate that at the same time the Pori native has dipped himself in the prestigious competition waters for the last time.
A place in the finals is the culmination of even a broken season within the limits of possibilities, and based on that great scenario, there is probably also a slim prospect of continuing the career at least until the World Championships in Singapore 2025.
Swimming shoots itself in the foot
Singapore will be a big highlight in the sport next season. During 2024, the mega-sport of the Olympic Games is shooting itself in the foot by organizing both the World Cup, European Championship and Olympic Games in one calendar year on the long track alone.
In December, the season “culminates” with the World Short Track Championships in Budapest.
Mattsson belongs to a very small group of Finns who have achieved both an Olympic medal and a World Championship and European Championship medal in a sport included in the Olympic program.
Among other swimmers, the stars of the 1990s have been able to do this Antti Kasvio and Jani Sievinenwho before Mattsson was the only Finnish male swimmer to represent four times at the Olympics.
Kasvio and Sievise left a lot of legacy, but above all they were creating it. In the wake of superstars, Finland was represented by no less than 12 swimmers at the Olympic Games in both Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996 – a team as big as traditional swimming power Sweden now in Paris.
Even after this, Finland received at least five swimmers for all six games until Tokyo 2021.
The size of the Olympic team in Paris highlights the harsh realities of top Finnish swimming: Mattsson took the race spot directly by breaking the time limit. Ida Hulkko got his own other, more solidary routes that are offered in swimming. The shortest breaststroke distance of the Games, i.e. 100 meters, was known to be far too long for him at this level.
So here is the world champion of Kasvio, Sievinen and undoubtedly also a five-time Olympic visitor Hanna-Maria Blacksmith (now Hinge) inheritance.
Long pool only
I emphasize that this text only relates to the displays given in the long, 50-meter pool. In this comparison, the second-sized pool, with its very modest requirements, does not deserve to be mentioned at all.
Matti Mattsson ended his Finnish career with a sensational World Cup bronze in Barcelona 2013. The likely climax of his career was seen in the Olympic pool in Tokyo in 2021 with a bronze, and the following year the man from Pori completed his medal category with silver at the European Championships.
The career was never the same kind of fireworks as the heyday of the men in their fifties mentioned above, but as a whole it was such a bet that you could and should have learned from it.
Whether it’s taken is a different matter. The size of the Olympic team symbolizes the state of top sport in Finland.
2017 hatchet eye stares
The Olympic swimming pool is built in the gigantic La Defense Arena, which was completed in 2017. Let’s see where the Barcelona World Cup hero went then.
At the World Championships in Budapest, 22nd place in the main event and 36th place in the side event. A year earlier, Mattsson had collapsed in the Olympic pool in Rio de Janeiro.
If the Olympic Games in Tokyo had been organized in their original location in 2020, Mattsson’s career would very likely have been over for years already.
Getting an elite sports career back on track is a more demanding trick than breaking into the top at a young and unprejudiced age.
Mattsson has been able to do both.
He is a very unlikely sports hero of our time. In Some, keeking tastes as good as cod liver oil, and not getting a sponsor, i.e. ensuring professionalism in the big world, but in Finland in a small sport is a well-known thing.
Mattsson has been able to do that as well, and things like this matter a lot when a young athlete is considering his choices between throwing himself into top sports or a safer, but perhaps more boring career.
Of course, swimming is not the only sport whose heritage can be quickly lost in Finland. All you have to do is watch Urheilu’s winter weekend broadcasts: Kaisa Mäkäräinen, Janne Ahonen and Kalle Palander are monuments to the phenomenon.
Mattsson’s legacy has not yet been completely destroyed, but it would be a trick of tricks when the main character’s career continues at least until this Tuesday.