In Monaco’s Diamond League, the entire spearhead guard, except Oliver Helander, who throws in Mikkeli. Monaco’s promoter is ready to take the Finnish star even after the registration period has closed.
Monaco Diamond League promoter Jean-Pierre Schoebel was surprised when a familiar Finnish manager Tero Heiska offered only an Olympic champion among its customer throwers for this week’s Friday night athletics event Keshorn Walcott. On the other hand, Heiska’s list was completely missing the number five of the world statistics by Oliver Helanderthe name of Finland’s second World Cup medal hope.
– We are very sorry for his absence. He would have been very welcome. We are not completely satisfied with the number of javelin throwers. We would have liked more than six, Schoebel told Urheilu on Wednesday.
In Monaco, the entire top guard of this season will throw on Friday, except for Helander and the one who suffered from health problems Neeraj Chopra, an Indian Olympic champion. The Czech Republic, from the top seven in the world statistics, will come to the line Jakub Vadlejchof Germany Julian WeberBelgium Timothy HermanGrenada’s double world champion Anderson Peters and Trinidad&Tobago’s Walcott.
Heiska did not offer Helander to Monaco because he knew that he had already signed a contract to compete that same evening Under the name Mikkeli Games in the event. In addition to the local club, Helander’s coach has been involved in organizing it Tero Pitkämäki and another spear legend Antti Ruuskanen and the Prosport Finland management office representing Helander.
Helander’s solution has surprised, even though Mikkeli’s winner gets a solid 2,500 euro reward in domestic athletics, and an attraction like Helander adds bonuses on top. The Monaco winner will receive around 9100 euros, and above all, Helander would badly need more Diamond League points to secure his place in the mid-September finals in Eugene, USA.
The winner of the Diamond League overall competition will be awarded approximately 27,000 euros. A sense of competition for the international cream would also be necessary. Helander has now been on a training break for about a week and a half.
– Of course, we don’t always get all the athletes we want and we don’t protest if they want to compete elsewhere, says Schoebel.
The promoter states that if Helander changes his mind at the last minute, the competition manager Heiska can pick up the phone.
– We would still be happy to take him with us, even after the registration period has expired.
In addition to Monaco, Helander’s choice of competition was a surprise to the organizers of the Lappeenranta GP. They had to drop the men’s javelin completely from the program after Mikkeli took the first names, i.e. Helander and Toni Kuusela.