In Turkuhalli, after a successful pilot competition, they will probably jump from the pole as long as Wilma Murro’s career continues. The risk-taking was tough, writes Pekka Holopainen
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
When the community of traditional Finnish sports gathers and goes looking for new economic foundations for its activities, the fresh traces are downright scary.
Helsinki Ski Weeks, rejected by the ski association after two attempts, failed miserably in the renovated, expensive infrastructure of the Olympic Stadium, which deepened the plight of the organization. The winter invasion of one traditional sport into the home of another was not successful by economic standards, even though the city skiers from Helsinki were grateful for the unique free local sports venue.
Now, the agile operator of another traditional sport, the organizer of the best athletics competition in Finland, Paavo Nurmi Games, threw its bait at the same risky runners.
In the future, PNG wants to keep its good brand and sport on display even when outdoor sports in Finland require a masochist’s mentality.
All honor to the country’s number one lap athlete Wilma Murron for attraction and the finest of athletics. But even though there is no Olympic Stadium in the middle of the Turkuhalli Artukainen fields, the rent level of the already 33-year-old boiler, the seeds of PNG’s daring pilot project, was guaranteed to reach a critical point.
In a different series
Collecting a budget of more than 100,000 euros for a one-night, one-sport event outside the actual sports season in a country with a weak indoor athletics culture is no joke.
We played a completely different series than in Lempääää’s Ideapark, where we also jumped from a pole under the roof, along with Murtoki.
Construction of the competition area in the sports palace, admired in the early 1990s, began on Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. On Thursday morning at 7 o’clock there was not to be any of it left.
However, during those 32.5 fleeting hours, it became clear that where Helsinki Ski Weeks had to be laid to rest, the PNG Valentine’s Meet will continue brightly. This was also confirmed by the event management immediately after the competition.
In the best case scenario, the Valentine’s Day stick carnival will have a future until 2028, if Murto would pack up his career then, for example, after the Los Angeles Olympic Games in his thirties.
The main user of the hall, TPS, has attracted an average of 4,942 spectators to its home games during the ice hockey championship league season. At this point, the organizers of the Seiväs event needed about 1,200 pairs of nostrils or less, without jeopardizing the future of the event, even on the contrary.
The best idea is copied
The best ideas are always copied from somewhere, and so is this one. Best in the world athlete Armand Duplantis has finished his well-attended title competition three times in Uppsala, which received huge media attention, with results of 592, 610 and 604.
Where Duplantis has only jumped more than six meters 20 times in the hall, Murro’s goal is to cross a bar that is tuned to a meter lower at some point in time. On Wednesday, the arc of the drama culminated in an extremely meager drop from the SE height of 486 centimeters.
When Pentti Nikula such a height was exceeded as the first in the world in Pajulahti in 1963, by the way, even then it was an event built solely on pole vaulting. So there was no need to go further to the sea to fish in Turku either.
An attractive species
Wilma Murto is the first Finnish megastar of the sport since Nikula, the national hero worshiped by the post-war baby boomers.
The insanely brave, but successful arena project of the people of Turku symbolizes that pole vaulting is once again very popular in Finland and even worth taking a significant financial risk.
Murto is the absolute top of the world, Juho Alasaari European junior champion and a non-fiction book about the history of Finnish pole vaulting was a strong candidate for the best sports opus of 2023. With all due respect, I would not have believed this 10 years ago.
All of this is a tribute to a wonderful and unique sport that is absolutely perfect for indoor conditions, the only one in the athletics family where the risk of even a very serious injury is always present during sports training.
That last mentioned element also welds the pole vaulters into a uniquely tight community. Pole vaulting, if anything, has earned its own special event in Finland as well.