The late anti-doping big man everyday with the dry British humor of the mild phenomenon integrated into elite sports. Talking with Timo Seppälä was always a great pleasure, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
At the core of Finnish anti-doping work, the doping laboratory located in Helsinki’s Pitäjänmäki held a very rare open day for the media in the fall of 2016, during which the absence of one notable person drew attention.
Finally, the first general secretary of the Finnish Center for Sports Ethics Harri Syväsalmi said the association’s medical expert Timo Blacksmith seriously injured in an accident. Quadriplegia had taken Seppälä for the last few years, in a wheelchair and relying on round-the-clock help.
In 2016, the voice that gave a face to Finnish anti-doping work for decades and patiently opened up to the people a phenomenon integrated into elite sports, whether we wanted it or not, fell silent for good in 2016. Timo Seppälä moved to another reality the other Saturday at the age of 72.
If you were to ask a thousand middle-aged visitors at Narinkkator their first thought about the anti-doping word, “Timo Seppälä” would not be a very rare answer.
Didn’t seek publicity
From a journalist’s point of view and with more than 35 years of career experience, a few contact persons rise above the rest. Doping, and especially cases found to be doping violations, with professional bans and publicity consequences, can be downright human tragedies.
From a professional point of view, however, they always contained one good side – a relevant reason to call Timo Seppälä, who did not shy away from publicity, and probably enjoyed it to some extent.
Dry British humor cultivated Seppälä’s ability to remove the mystique, media frenzy and conspiracy theories around doping was unique. In the end, what was left was an athlete who improved his performance with the help of a banned substance or method, bad luck or incompetence, and a doping test timed at the right time.
There were no doctor’s bags left at airports, given to the media by vengeful police, grandma’s cough medicine, official conspiracies, Norwegians who hate Finland, contaminated meat or menstrual cycles that caused special doping samples. At the end of the process, only a laconic announcement came out, which said that the athlete would move outside of active activities for a limited period of time.
Scream in falsetto
It’s not once or twice that I myself have listened to an athlete punished for doping, or some kind of representative of him, screaming in falsetto, following the catchy Seppälä quotes.
During Seppälä’s time, Finnish athletes were caught using the entire spectrum of doping, such as stimulants, anabolic steroids or blood manipulation.
Growth hormone was a very difficult piece for testers for a long time. Skier of the sports appeals body, or CAS To Juha Lalluka The ban issued in 2014 was a pioneering case in the field – and it was based on Seppälä, who was sure of his cause, was ruthless in pushing the process to the last step, when the athlete had been released in the lower ranks.
In the years of the anti-doping guru, a phenomenon already familiar from abroad was also seen in Finland, i.e. athletes’ more sensitive – and completely justified – reliance on legal help than before. Seppälä was also able to explain this phenomenon in an unmistakable way:
– Coach X acquires the substances, athlete X uses them, I reveal the use and Olli Rauste (deputy referee, jurist who handled legal cases in sports) tries to release the athlete.
The events of the World Cup in Lahti 2001 were a kind of generational experience for all the actors who were involved in them. Of course, Seppälä belonged to the hottest core due to his position and received more than his share from an angry nation.
He did not attribute the drastically reduced blood doping cases in skiing to improved ethics in the field. The microblood transfusion, which is difficult for testers in endurance sports, was a phenomenon that Seppälä would have liked to focus more on at the beginning of his career.
Time ran out.
Pekka Holopainen
The author is a columnist based in Pori and the only sports reporter who has been selected as Journalist of the Year in Finland.
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