Joonas Kumpulainen at the age of 13, his playing style was similar to that of Manchester City Kyle Walker or Bayer Leverkusen Jeremy Frimpong.
A rising defender who supports attacks, a so-called wing back player. Kumpulainen sawed up and down the football field with his strong running power.
Kumpulainen, who played in PK Keski-Uusimaa, wanted to become a professional soccer player.
Everything looked promising and he was invited to the Huhkajaturnauna for young players. About 200 promising Finnish junior soccer players were selected for the tournament.
– When I was 14, I was pretty hard at futs. I was even selected for the star field of the tournament, i.e. the 11 best players.
However, Kumpulainen noticed that he did not have a soft touch on the ball, like, for example, Walker or Frimpong.
– I wasn’t skilled enough. I had an outrageously heavy touch, Kumpulainen recalls.
Kumpulainen thought that the gifts would not be enough to become a professional. A promising sports career could have ended when he was already in middle school, like many other young Finnish people.
– If I had only played football for the last couple of years, my sports career might have ended there.
“Football, swimming and running were a nice combination”
However, Kumpulain had other sports in store: running and swimming, which had remained hobbies alongside football.
In fact, at the age of 13, he had run Finnish youth records in both 600 meters (1.28.38) and 800 meters (2.06.76).
In the summer of 2020, at the age of 14, Kumpulainen broke the wild 14-year-old Finnish record in 800 meters by two minutes (1.59.89) with only a football background.
Kumpulainen says directly that the wild times spoke of talent, but also of a versatile sports background. His father and mother were track and field athletes.
– I was precocious for my age and talented. Futsal, swimming and running were a nice combination.
In Finnish sports, there has been a concern about how children focus on one sport at a young age and do not exercise enough.
Director of coaching and training of the Finnish Sports Association Jarkko Finni took a strong stand on the matter in December In the text published on SUL’s website.
Below is an excerpt from the text:
“Top sports for children (under 13) is absurd. Finnish sports culture has slipped into an operating model where children are not given the opportunity to freely search and find their own sport that suits them best.”
“You must not stomp on the path of another sport. Or if blocking the path of another sport in salon talks is tolerated, then the number of activities of one’s own sport and sanctions for absence ensure that the child stays on the “right path”.
In a nutshell: According to Finn, Finnish children are too quickly guided to a certain sport, and top sports come along too quickly. Sports hobby is stopped too early. The sport circle doesn’t look good when you also practice another sport.
Joonas Kumpulainen is a good example of what happens when sports have stayed together longer.
Now he is 18 years old and last summer he ran 800 meters with a time of 1:50.50. He is one of Finland’s most promising runners and aims for success in value races in the future. He started fully investing in running only when he was 16 years old.
Kumpulainen has read Finn’s text.
– In my opinion, he was right that children should not be forced into one sport. It’s stupid if the coaching emphasizes that you won’t get on the racing team if you do some other sport.
Kumpulainen, representing Orimattila’s Jymy, says that it was easy for him to combine football, swimming and running at the age of 14.
– The coaches were really encouraging. It didn’t hurt that I was away from football training because of the athletics championships. Gotta be thankful for that.
How has versatility benefited you?
– I notice that I have developed in many ways in terms of my physical characteristics. Many characteristics are at a good level, not only endurance and running typical for 800 meter runners. I also have good strength levels, good agility, balance and swimming technique as well. I don’t stay in the pool at other people’s feet.
According to Kumpulainen, versatility has also been useful in injury prevention. He says that he escaped with few injuries.
See below how Kumpulainen trained at the age of 14 and how the program has changed to this day.
According to several studies, Finnish children move too little. Kumpulainen believes that versatile movement would be the key to the problem.
– Versatility could be the solution to finding one’s own sport.
Kumpulainen wants to tell young people about his own experiences. He has talked about the benefits of his versatile sports background on his social media channels.
Dreaming of the Finnish flag and going around the field
Kumpulainen has put a lot into his running career.
He gives a phone interview from Helsinki’s Mäkelänrinte at Urhea’s facilities, where he is currently training in an atmosphere similar to 2,000 meters. The situation is artificially created. The high-altitude camp lasts a few weeks.
In the future, Kumpulainen is aiming for the Olympics in the 800-meter and 1,500-meter races.
His 1,500 meter record of 3:50.55 is confusingly hard considering how few running kilometers he gets per week.
They come to Kumpulainen in the spring only about 40 times a week. For 1,500 meters, milers who run around 4-3:50 minutes may normally run 120-150 kilometers per week.
Kumpulainen says that he wants to continue with versatile training. He does several basic endurance exercises on a bike, swim or cross trainer. At the same time, he wants to save his legs.
– I accumulate more training hours than my training buddies, Kumpulainen says.
Kumpulainen’s goal next summer is to break the 800 meters mark at the World Junior Championships. It is 1.49.06.
After that, the focus is on the summer of 2025 and the under-20 European Championships in Finland.
– If everything goes well, it would be wonderful to run around the field with the Finnish flag on my back. That’s what I dream about.