Lasse Virén’s 5,000 meter Olympic gold is one of the Finnish storytelling classics. Athletics enthusiast Jussi Tuomikoski interpreted the statement of the late Paavo Nopose and had his audience captivated.
The European Championship week in Munich can be seen on channels from August 11 to August 21. You can find live broadcasts, highlights, the competition schedule, interesting news and topics on ‘s competition page.
Lasse Virénin The Olympic victories of 5,000 and 10,000 meters in Munich in 1972 are a generational experience. Among the older population, there are few who have never heard Paavo Noponen reports on the classics of Finnish endurance running.
Virén’s 5,000m victory on 10 September 1972 has remained in the hearts of many sports fanatics, because less than half an hour later Pekka Vasala won gold in the 1,500m.
Finnish athletics did well at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and it’s not bad at the same stadium 50 years later either.
On Saturday, the third European Championship medal was celebrated at the Finnish team’s hotel, Kristiina Mäkelän triple jump silver.
Medal coffees were a combination of the present and the past. A whiff of the latter was presented by a person who arrived in Munich on the Yleiserluðifanit ry’s trip Jussi Tuomikoskiwho presented an interpretation of the 5,000 meter race narrated by Nopose.
You can watch the interpretation in the video below. Below the video is the original audio of Paavo Nopose’s narration from 1972. The story continues after the video and audio.
Tuomikoski’s interpretation did not leave anyone cold, but many in the audience wiped the corners of their eyes during the furious applause.
– I performed this interpretation for the first time at my friend’s wedding in 1986. Since then I have performed at weddings and parties a few times, but you can count them on the fingers of two hands, Tuomikoski said and admitted that the performance was exciting.
– There are always butterflies in the stomach. That’s just a good thing, though. This occasion was perhaps the culmination of it all. There were medalists (Mäkelä and pole vaulter Wilma Murto), the Finnish team and media representatives. All events are important, but this was a certain kind of highlight, Tuomikoski admits.
It’s coming from Oslo
Tuomikoski, born in Ojanperä in Rovaniemi County, lives in Oslo, Norway, where his wife got a job as a midwife in the 1990s. Since then, the couple has kept a lodge in the legendary landscapes of Holmenkollen. Tuomikoski is a forestry technician by training and has also studied a degree in missionary theology. Now the workplace is the post office.
– It may be that in the future I will study something else, says the 56-year-old, who is interested in poetry.
Even though the program number seen on Saturday is from 50 years ago, when Tuomikoski was 6 years old, the presentation of Nopose’s 5,000 meter narration is not the result of long work.
– My father had an LP at home, where on one side of the tape was Lassen’s 10,000 meter victory and on the other 5,000 meter victory and Peka’s (Vasala’s 1,500 meter) gold run. I was a little boy when my father and godfather listened to the 5,000 meter race. It somehow remained in their subconscious, how they, as sports fanatics, enjoyed listening to Nopose’s enthusiasm.
– Once we were at a cottage with a group of friends. Everyone was into sports, and everyone had to perform something related to sports. That’s when I started explaining this issue. When I was done, the boys said that this should be performed elsewhere than just among friends, Tuomikoski said.
The most attentive can hear that Tuomikoski’s presentation is not a perfect copy of Nopose’s narration. This is how Tuomikoski meant it. It is an interpretation in which Tuomikoski uses small details from Virén’s 10,000-meter winning run in Munich.
– When a guy asked me to perform at his wedding, I listened to Noponen’s reports from Munich, wrote them down on paper and made certain additions. Noponen was an amazing verbal person who knew how to create an atmosphere, Tuomikoski praised the narrator legend who passed away on October 24, 2016.
Tuomikoski had time to meet Noponen in person at the age of 14 at the Ounasvaara Winter Games in 1980 – that is, before interpreting Noponen for the first time.
– I remember how he walked a little badly as a result of a car crash in 1976. It was watched when Jouko Törmänen jumps.
In the middle of the interview, Kristiina Mäkelä, the protagonist of the medal coffees, went to thank Tuomikoski personally.
– It was a hugely wonderful show. I think it’s amazing when people put themselves out there like that. Your presentation was the highlight of the day for me, Mäkelä thanked Tuomikoski warmly.
Poetry for glory
According to Tuomikoski, Noponen was in a class of his own as a narrator because he understood poetry.
– Noponen went a step deeper than his apprentice father Pekka Tiilikainen.
– If the text and emotional state of a writer, poet or storyteller meet, at least in my case, the brain records it. Then I just explain what I see in my soul, Tuomikoski described.
Tuomikoski named Tiilikainen’s boisterous track from 1956 as his second favorite narration. Victory Hellsten decided the victory for Finland in the match against Sweden by writing the anchor leg of the 4×400 meters at the end of the brisk back leg of the Swedish by Alf Petersson side by side and finally past with chalk lines.
– Cold shivers still come from that explanation.