In Rome in June, he won the EC bronze in the javelin throw Oliver Helander27, will be announced on Friday in Helsinki as the Athlete of the Year. The javelin thrower has been chosen many times during the lifetime of the tradition, but Helander will be the first Finnish Athlete of the Year who lives permanently in Denmark.
At the same time as the coaching relationship that started at the end of 2021, the javelin legend Tero Pitkämäki ended in September, Helander, who had lived in Vaasa for years, was faced with another major life change. The athlete gave up his apartment in Finland and settled completely in Denmark. His girlfriend is studying dentistry at Aarhus University on the east coast of the Jutland peninsula.
Selected as Pitkämäki’s successor, worked as a sports coach for the Sports Confederation Petteri Piironen admits that he did not know about the intentions of the EC trio when the cooperation was agreed upon in early autumn.
– I didn’t know at that point, but soon it came up. Oliver said that he no longer has ties to Vaasa and that he is moving to Denmark, where he has spent a lot of time during the past year.
Text messages to Africa
About a decade ago, Piironen also coached athletes living abroad, i.e. Kenyans Julius Yegoa and Egyptian Love Abdelrahmanwho took the gold and silver medals ahead of Pitkämäki at the World Championships in Beijing 2015.
Piironen mainly communicates with his African athletes via text messages; He can follow Helander’s training in Denmark with the help of a smartphone.
– Oliver puts the phone on the stand to shoot in a place where I can see the training situation and be able to comment and discuss. This applies to strength, exercise ball and body care exercises at least three times a week. When Oliver trains outside, it’s more challenging, Piironen tells about the method, which is also used from time to time by his other javelin man, who finished tenth in both the European Championships in Rome and the Olympic Games in Paris Toni Keränen with.
Not an optimal situation
Although Helander is supposed to train once a month for a week long intensive sessions in Kuortane, Piironen does not even try to claim that the situation is optimal for the country’s best all-around athlete, who is preparing for the Tokyo World Championship season.
The rough structure of the training is that Helander touches the javelin only in Kuortane; In Denmark, he develops his qualities and tunes his body to the Kuortaneen power cycles.
– This is not an optimal situation, but in athletics, in the traditional sense, athletes do not have wage-payers who can determine where the work is done. Studies and relationships take people out into the world, and then you have to be able to come up with the best possible solutions to optimize training and results.
Piironen reminds that Helander will be 28 and Keränen 27 next. Athletes of this age should already be able to carry out a significant part of their training program independently. Helander, who has a Karelian background and has already completed seven prestigious competitions, spent a week with Piironen in Kuortane earlier this month, during which the exercises were thoroughly reviewed.
– In spite of everything, I claim that in this pattern Oliver will get more close training measured in days than in the past two years. Tero (Pitkämäki) went on average once a week to watch Oliver practice sports.
Pitkämäki’s lack of time was a big reason for the two parting ways.
Helander and Piironen start to show their throwing power, under technical conditions, only at the beginning of the year’s training camp in South Africa, where closer to a month passes. Before that, Helander will come to Kuortane at the beginning of December to train for a long week.
Good conditions
Although Denmark is known for several other sports – for example football, Helander’s ex-sport form of handball, badminton and cycling – than athletics, according to Piironen, the matter of training conditions is not left to be discussed in Denmark’s second largest city.
in Aarhus works active athletics clubs, and Helander has also received a training group from fellow athletes at the competition level, although not javelin throwers. Two Danish men threw more than 70 meters last season, among them Arthur Wiborg Petersen no less than 79.73, which took the 66th place in the world statistics for the season.
– The hall conditions for training are excellent for everything else except for throwing, but it is intended to be done only in Kuortane, says Piironen.
Helander will probably return to Finland more permanently in 2026 at the earliest, when his life partner finishes his studies.
Helander and Keränen, two of the prize throwers of recent years, will continue under Piironen’s coaching. Moved to Tampere Toni Kuusela has spent the season quietly. According to Piironen, Kuusela, who underwent ankle surgery in both October 2023 and August 2024, and is still recovering from the latter operation, is considering the continuation of his career.
– If Toni still decides to invest and needs my coaching, we will discuss the matter. I have consciously given him time to rehabilitate and think, says Piironen.