Konsta Mäenpää’s story is a great example of how important it is to keep children in sports clubs in the turmoil of adolescence. Mäenpää’s journey to become an adult prize medalist is full of surprising twists and turns.
Konsta Mäenpää, 24, in Budapest to the surprise of many Greco-Roman wrestlers weighing less than 130 kg, won the bronze medal in Budapest. The previous heavyweight medalists are from 2006 Juha Ahokas and from 1952 Tauno Kovanenso these great achievements of big men have not been quite every year.
Konsta Mäenpää’s journey to become an adult value medalist has been full of surprising twists and turns. A little boy who wrestled in the gym for a long time, mostly as a continuation of the queue and at the bottom of the pile. Mäenpää spent his youth in Ilmajoki in the village of Koskenkorva, on the outskirts of a winery. The junior teams of the local Superpesisse Club still enjoyed the services of a joker in high school, but playing “Kossu” did not quench the thirst he was looking for in the sport.
Individual sports gave personal responsibility between victory and defeat, and it was ultimately the biggest stimulus.
Wrestling went with Mäenpää since he was a little boy – after all, it was in Ilmajoki, where the children of the village go at least to try the sport. There were also problems along the way and the parents, Outi and Juha had to be tight from time to time.
– I don’t know if I can say this anymore today, but I’ve really been taken from the ear to the wrestler. Today, I am very grateful to my own parents that the style of upbringing sometimes included physical elements, Mäenpää laughs.
In autumn 2008, when Mäenpää was 11 years old Seppo Yli-Hannuksela took over the coaching responsibility of a large herd of boys. The wizard’s goal was to export Marko Yli-Hannukselan and Jarkko Ala-Huikun after the generations of the third wave to the top of the world.
On the coaching side, Yli-Hannuksela is a gigantic and by far the biggest single factor in Mäenpää’s development career. Above all, the difficult puberty, when the young males are in pain in their own way and the chess must be kept in the wrestling hall, was handled with Sepo’s stout authority.
– Konsta was such a small and round boy, whose physical development came a little later. Personally, I noticed a change after puberty. He became a brave thrower, and he wanted to throw a lot of great wide-throw overs. After 16 years, the desire to throw really began to show. In general, Konsta was the most modest part of that group for a long time, and her story underscores the importance of keeping children involved in sports clubs, Seppo Yli-Hannuksela said.
When the desire to throw was found, it was the turn of the young age groups. The success started to come very quickly in Finland and the Finnish leotard was also worn in the second last junior year of 2016. Even then, Mäenpää buried a bang that he would blow up the following summer.
Young people in the medal standings
In the beginning of 2017, Mäenpää struggled Arvi Savolaisen with a 96-pound seat in the U20 age group. Mutual victories came both sides, but Savolainen clearly struck a seal at the European Championships in Dortmund in May at the Bucharest International Competition. Ilmajokinen’s mind was on the ground, and after the competition he turned to Jarkko Ala-Huikku, the head coach of the age group.
– Legs were reportedly quite a muse in Romania, when I had to lose almost 10 kilos. Konsta talked smart and rightly said that now we have to move up the series for good. I promised to suggest a young man to the coaching committee for a heavy series right away when there were no other goers, Ala-Huikku recalls.
In the end, it was decided to send Mäenpää to the competition, even though each new representative paid a lot of euros. The U20-age classical-style championships had been held for seven long years without any medals. There was a jackpot in Germany. Arvi Savolainen European Championship and Toni Metsomäki the bronze also came partly from the bush, but the most surprising bang was the Mäenpää heavyweight series bronze medal, which came with great wrestling.
The same pace continued five weeks later in Pirkkahalli, Tampere, on the World Cup mat. Mäenpää fooled the home crowd, stylized the wide-throw throws mentioned by Seppo Yli-Hannuksela and aired another bronze medal at the end of the competition. He had risen a year out of complete unknowns to the top of the world in the heaviest series of his peers.
Pounds as a problem
The path from age-medal to adult excellence is never easy. In the case of Ilmajoki, weight was an additional problem at first. The handwheel vibrated for a long time for only 110-115 pounds of weight, and the weight advantage of twenty pounds is simply too much in the adult series. Mäenpää quickly noticed that the opponents, who were operating at full weights in the 130-pound range, no longer bothered with the throwing range.
– Eating has been a heavy activity. But it only helps to shovel extra amounts of food into the navel if you want more mass. It may have been a good situation with weight for about a year now, and it’s starting to suffice.
Swinging the live weight close to the upper limit of the heavy series has been a big part of Mäenpää’s puzzle. Now that we are almost at full weight, he is better able to respond to the hard pushing of big limbs in a vertical weight and get better throwing spots.
– I see that this was a great achievement, and it’s good that it came now. But I have long had the goal of wrestling a long career at the top level. After high school, I decided to look at this card and didn’t apply for any postgraduate studies. This brings faith and satisfaction to the decisions made, and of course there was more enthusiasm for future practice. The most important thing is to enjoy the species I love for a long time and get more results, Mäenpää says.
It seems that the Finnish public is still served Konsta Mäenpää’s wide-ranging overflights many more times.
Mäenpää will compete in the Finnish Wrestling Championships this weekend.