Sami Elopuro, Jarkko Nieminen, Marjo Matikainen-Kallström, Kyra Kyrklund and posthumously Olli Mäki have been elected to the Hall of Fame of Finnish sports.
Five new members have been elected to the Hall of Fame of Finnish Sports. The selections were announced on Sunday at ‘s Sports Studio. The new members of the gallery of honor will receive their Uno uprights as usual at the Sports Gala on Thursday.
He was elected to the Hall of Fame Sami Elopuro, Jarkko Nieminen, Marjo Matikainen-Kallström, Kyra Kyrklund and posthumously Olli Mäki.
Sami Elopuro and Jarkko Nieminen are among the best racket players in Finnish sports.
Squash player Sami Elopuro is the Finnish athlete who has reached the highest ranking in the individual racquet sports rankings. At his best, he was ranked sixth in the men’s squash world ranking in 1992–1993. Elopuro was part of the Finnish team that won the squash World Cup bronze in 1991. At the European Championship level, he won three silver and six bronze medals for Finland in the team competition between 1986 and 1996.
Among personal achievements, Elopuro’s best were four places in the finals in squash world tour tournaments, as well as places in the quarterfinals of the World Championships in 1992 and 1995.
Jarkko Nieminen is the most successful Finnish tennis player of all time. He reached 13th place in the ATP ranking of men’s tennis professionals at his best in 2006.
In 1999, Nieminen won the junior series at the US Open and started his professional career at the beginning of the millennium. Already in November 2001 in Stockholm, in the second ATP tournament of his career, he sensationally reached the final. Nieminen won the first ATP tournament victory in Finnish tennis history in January 2006 in Auckland.
Cross-country skier Marjo Matikainen-Kallström belongs to a rare group of Finnish athletes who have won both the Olympic gold and the world championship in an individual competition.
Matikainen-Kallström’s competitive career in the adult series only lasted a little over five years, but she managed to produce 11 prestigious medals. The peak of his career was between 1987 and 1989, when he won three world championships and Olympic gold in Calgary in 1988.
At the World Championships in Lahti in 1989, Matikainen-Kallström achieved a medal in all five women’s skiing events in a unique way for Finns. He won the overall competition of the cross-country skiing world cup three seasons in a row, 1986–1988.
Matikainen-Kallström has been chosen Sportsperson of the Year three times, in 1986, 1987 and 1989.
Kyra Kyrklund is the most successful rider in Finnish sports history, World Cup silver medalist in dressage and World Cup final winner. Kyrklund was selected eight times for the Olympic Games, where he competed six times between 1980 and 2008. Three times, Kyrklund’s Olympic race ended up close to a medal, i.e. instead of fifth.
In addition to his competition career, Kyrklund has created a prestigious international career as a dressage trainer. Kyra Kyrklund is the first representative of equestrian sports in the Finnish Sports Hall of Fame.
In 2019, the late Olli Mäki won the European boxing championship both as an amateur and as a professional. In 1962, Mäki appeared in one of the biggest events in Finnish boxing history, the featherweight World Championship match at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium. In the sportsman of the year vote, Olli Mäki finished third at his best in 1959.
The Finnish Sports Gala can be seen live on on Thursday, January 12. The gala starts with the Alkuilta broadcast at 18:00 on TV2, Areena and the app. The gala broadcast starts at 20:00. You can vote for the most exciting sports moment of the year on ‘s website here.