PHOTO: Bildbyrån
It was the day many Finns had been waiting for.
But Finland’s dream night at the European Athletics Championships turned into a super fiasco.
– It is sad, says runner Topi Raitanen to the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti.
Many Swedes are longing for the Wednesday evening of the European Athletics Championships then both Armand Duplantis and Andreas Almgren chasing EC gold in Rome. While the Finns were mostly looking forward to Monday evening and counting in advance a lot of medals.
“Tonight we can have a rain of medals”, wrote the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat as the headline before the evening.
Finland’s giant failure
But the dream night ended in a huge fiasco for Finland. First in the women’s pole vault final, the European champion broke Wilma Murto out early and Elina Lampela also missed a medal with a fourth place.
– It boils in me, Murta tells Iltalehti afterwards.
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After that would Topi Raitanen defend his European Championship gold in the 3,000 meter hurdles. But again it was a flat fall for our neighboring country and he came second last in the final.
– Its sad. I’m going to defend my gold, but I won’t be up to par, Raitanen told Iltalehti.
“Huge disappointment”
Last out of the evening was Silje Kosonen who also finished in a poor fourth place and the Finnish medal rain on Monday night ended with zero medals.
“A huge disappointment. The medal dreams completely went up in smoke,” writes the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat.
“Everything turned out to be a pancake”, Iltalehti also writes.
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The tone is now really hard in the home country after all the medal misses and the athletics EC could end in a huge fiasco for Finland.
– Both Wilma Murto and Topi Raitanen have had problems with injuries, so they certainly have an explanation for their results. In Silje’s case… It’s a small disappointment, but not huge, says Iltalehti’s columnist Santtu Silvennoinen according to Expressen.
– The success we had in Munich two years ago, that was the exception. What we show here, that is the normal level of Finnish athletics. Now all hope rests with the men’s javelin, just as it usually is.
READ MORE: Swedish superstar: Erik Erlandsson surprised everyone and became a sensational fourth in the EC final
But if the Finnish javelin throwers also miss the medals, then the big saw will come forward.
– Then it would be a disaster, says the Finnish columnist Silvennoinen.
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