Montreal 1976, Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984. Three consecutive Summer Olympics and three consecutive Olympic gold medals in Finland Pertti Karppinen.
Karppinen participated in a total of five Olympics, but after his peak years, only one Finnish male rower has appeared on the Olympic stage. In 1996 Tomas Söderblom finished twelfth in the Atlanta Games.
For that, a doctor, a researcher and a world-class rower Joel Naukkarinen30, hopes for a quick change.
When you meet Joel Naukkarinen and watch what he does, it’s easy to believe when he claims that his physical characteristics are already enough for Olympic gold.
At the moment, the limiting factor is his technical know-how, and how he knows how to transport a speedboat. The solution to the problem would be to hire a coach or go abroad to a rowing center where it would be possible to get coaching.
– But both options require resources that are not there, even though I work hard for it, Naukkarinen states in the Sportliv program.
Last season was Joel Naukkarinen’s best so far as a track rower. He financed it mostly with borrowed money.
The third time tells the truth?
Naukkarinen found his passion during high school when he joined the school’s church boat team. Since then, he has won ten World Cup medals in indoor rowing and one in Coastal rowing, for which the rowers are hoping for a new Olympic sport for the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
Now he is also looking for a medal in track rowing, which, thanks to its Olympic status, is the only rowing sport in Finland that is of even a little interest to people other than the sport’s enthusiasts.
Naukkarinen made his first attempt to get to the Olympics together Antti Kilpeläinen with in an unmanned duo. A place in Rio 2016 was not achieved, and when Kilpeläinen ended his top career after that, Naukkarinen decided to strive for the Tokyo Games in the double rowing duo Olli-Pekka Karppinen.
When that attempt also failed, Naukkarinen and Karppinen are now both aiming for the world top in single rowing.
During the two previous Olympic projects, medical studies stood in the way of optimal rowing.
Since Naukkarinen graduated as a doctor two years ago, he has identified himself primarily as a rower whose goal is to win Olympic gold.
However, one possible obstacle in the way is money. When talking about the annual budget, the probability of success goes up to 100,000 euros, according to Naukkarinen. He has not even dared to dream of such an amount.
Racing rowing is a sport in which the development of the boat and the purchase and testing of various equipment costs money. A lot.
– The periods when the budget has been 20,000–50,000 euros have gone quite well. If it has fallen below that, the result has been quite a low quotation – relative to what it could be. Sometimes it seems pretty merciless how money determines results.
In the absence of money, the science geek has invested in the details.
Nothing is left to chance
When Sportliv visits Naukkarinen in Kouvola, there is a high-altitude camp in a cabin on the shore of Lake Vuohijärvi.
Since 2017, he himself has been involved in a project that develops different simulation methods for high-altitude training. If you really want to live and train high above sea level, it costs both time and money.
Naukkarinen tries to spend at least 16 hours a day in his alpine hut, where the “altitude” gradually rises to 3,000 meters.
In order to enhance high-altitude training and adapt the body to the upcoming competitions in the heat of southern Europe, he also does heat training. It enhances high-altitude training responses, blood variables, and heart and circulatory function.
After the morning’s rowing workout, he still rides an exercise bike in his alpine hut for half an hour next to the heating fans. During that time, the room temperature rises to 35 degrees.
Practically the whole day is dedicated to sports. When Naukkarinen is not training, eating or sleeping, he is looking for information, networking and collaborating with dozens of experts around the world. The group includes a motley group of experts in different fields – but it still lacks a coach who would help in the daily development of rowing technique.
The gym program is tailored for the rower. In rowing, 60 percent of the power comes from the legs, 30 percent from the abdominal and back muscles, and 10 percent from the hands.
At the gym, he is sparred by his brother Juho, who is a masseur and helps his brother keep his body in good shape. Naukkarinen does short sets with maximum weight.
– I do hypertrophic training for the most important rowing muscles, the goal of which is to change the composition of the body in such a way that muscle mass is located in the most important rowing muscle groups. It’s a demanding goal, because those muscle groups are the ones that get the most fatigued with endurance training.
The subject of Naukkarinen’s dissertation is the creation of the feeling of fatigue in the brain, its neurobiological mechanisms and the influence on them. The goal is to find methods that can be used to perform even better with the help of neuromodulation.
– My way of doing this work may seem stressful and heavy to someone else, but for me it is the most motivating way to do it. If I didn’t go all-in on sports, I’d probably lose my motivation.
– Every week I gain new important insights and discover new areas that I hadn’t considered at all while training. I feel like I’m constantly getting a little deeper.
A day behind the wheel Neurosciences
Joel Naukkarinen was interested in sports psychology and physiology at the beginning of his medical studies. During the neuroscience course, a whole new world opened up, and in recent years he has gained his greatest insights precisely in the understanding of neuroscience.
– Everything we feel, all the states of mind, experiences and thoughts that arise in us, they are not something abstract or things of the spirit world, but they all have very concrete physiological and logical processes behind them.
As an example, Naukkarinen mentions a phenomenon that is familiar to both athletes and fitness enthusiasts.
– Every athlete probably recognizes the difference between when it’s a bad day or a flow state – when you feel like you have endless stamina, you’re really motivated and focused, you lose track of time and it’s easy to do. Then sometimes a much smaller load can feel completely exhausting. I find it fascinating what kind of neuronal processes are behind these extremes.
Joel Naukkarinen has been trying to build an identity as a professional rower for a couple of years. However, making rowing a profession has proven to be really difficult.
– If I had a thousand euros a month to live on and the costs of the sport were covered, I would be satisfied. I feel that then there would be peace of mind at work and I would be able to be very successful. When you’re currently trying to get by on a few hundred a month, this would be nothing without loan money and the support of loved ones.
Although he is not yet working as a doctor, the knowledge that his finances are secured after a rowing career has given him the courage to finance sports with loan money.
At the moment, the goal is next summer’s Paris Olympics, but Naukkarinen also keeps the door open for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles – the place where Pertti Karppinen won his third and last gold 44 years earlier.
– In Los Angeles, the competition distance is 1,500 meters instead of the current 2,000 meters, which would suit me better than well as a typical sprinter.
And if the International Olympic Committee decides to appropriately add coastal rowing to the 2028 competition program, Naukkarinen is definitely ready for it. Last year, he won the World Championship bronze in the beach sprint – exactly the type of competition that is a candidate for the Olympics.
– From a financial point of view, it would probably be worthwhile to leave such a sport and go to work as a doctor. But I don’t think money brings happiness.
Instead, the pursuit of the Olympic dream is what currently gives his life the most meaning.
– That’s why I want to do this for this short moment in life, when it’s possible.