A serving of chicken nuggets. There Santtu Tahvanainen breakfast on the day when Sportliv arrives to visit the bowler’s home hall in Ylöjärvi.
Not a typical breakfast for an aspiring professional athlete. But Tahvanainen is not a typical top athlete.
He’s not ashamed to admit that he’s both lazy and a bit incompetent. That he hated school. That he’s always had trouble taking advice from well-meaning coaches. And that he prefers to spend his time playing video games.
But then he went and beat himself up after going to America last spring to show off his skills.
One thing led to another, and in November, the 26-year-old from Ylöjärvi was chosen as American professional bowling’s Rookie of the Year – the first Finn, the second European and only the fourth foreigner since the award was established in 1964.
– If there’s something I’ve hated more than anything throughout my life, it’s losing. The bigger the stakes, the more I’ve been able to get out of myself. When titles and tens of thousands of dollars are at stake, you give it your all, says the child of nature, who even the night before leaving for the United States considered skipping the entire trip.
The throw didn’t work and the previous races had gone badly. At that moment, debuting on the pro tour felt like an overwhelming challenge.
His good friend and bowling buddy Simon Susiluoto energized by the pep talk, however, he set off.
– Without Simon, there would be no American story to tell.
Watch Sportliv’s mini-documentary on Santtu Tahvanain:
Grew up in my grandfather’s bowling alley
When Santtu Tahvanainen was four years old, his grandfather started running a bowling alley in Ylöjärvi. Around the same time, Santtu threw his first bowling ball. Grandpa remembers like it was yesterday, how Santtu picked up a tremendous speed, dashed to the line and let the ball go.
– You couldn’t advise him, because he knew and knew everything right away at the age of four, asked Tahvanainen remembers with a laugh.
To tell the truth, he hasn’t always had it easy with his grandson, but the boy has had an eye for the game and the ball from the beginning.
Already when Santtu won his first prize money, 500 euros, at the age of 12, the idea began to sprout that he could earn a living as a bowler. It seemed like a much more attractive option than studying and getting a “real” profession.
However, after middle school, Tahvanainen started studying to become a merconomist, but already in the second year he left his studies and started bowling full-time.
According to his own words, in the beginning it was going damn well, but then it started to get worse. He himself talks about some kind of burnout.
When the junior championships, where she had been chasing gold for many years, went badly, Tahvanainen made a radical decision.
– I packed the balls and did a disappearing trick just in time. Without informing anyone, I stopped bowling.
Tahvanainen moved to her aunt in the country, to collect her thoughts. At the same time, he made a small living playing video games.
About a year later, grandfather asked Santtu to work for the summer at the miniature golf course next to the bowling alley.
– I made the mistake of going inside the hall to make a few test throws – and damn it felt good, Tahvanainen recalls four years later.
The spark reignited.
– In the second race I scored 300 points and my old dream of trying my wings in the USA woke up.
Due to the corona pandemic and lack of money, the dream came true only last spring.
Unexpected success on debut
Together with his national teammates Tomas Käyhkön and Jarno Lahten with Tahvanainen traveled to the United States in February of last year. There he discovered a completely new side of himself.
– I usually never concentrate before throwing, but there for some reason I did it. Suddenly everything fell into place and I was playing much better than I dared to hope.
He admits that the fact that no one expected anything from him may have made his game more relaxed – despite the tension.
Tahvanainen immediately placed in the top ten in her PBA debut. Just a few weeks later, he became the name on everyone’s lips when he finished second at the Colorado Springs Open.
Achievements that seem unimaginable when you take into account the poor race condition just before the trip.
When Santtu Tahvanainen was 11 years old, he switched to a two-handed bowling technique.
The world number one Jason Belmonte and his Finnish colleague Osku Palermaa use the same technique.
Success on the professional tour placed Tahvanainen on the player list, from which teams playing in the PBA league could reserve players for the league tournament to be played in July.
Tahvanainen was selected for the Dallas Strikers in the first round. In the end, he was the only newcomer who claimed a place in the top five of ten league teams.
Santtu will never forget the booking event itself. He followed the event via live stream at home in Finland.
When it was the Dallas Strikers’ turn to pick, the PBA boss Tom Clark gave the floor to the team captain, a bowling legend For Norm Duke.
– Tom, I hope you can pronounce the boy’s name, it’s quite impossible…
That’s when Santtu Tahvanainen knew what was coming.
– At that point, a smile appeared and it was almost as if the tears would have started to flow, because I knew that there was no other name on the list that could be a difficult Yankee for Duke.
Clark helped Duke with the pronunciation and reminded him that over the years they had learned to pronounce as well Mika Koivuniemi name correct. And added that it would certainly be wise to learn Santtu Tahvanainen’s name as well.
A great end to a great year
In July, Tahvanainen went back to play in the PBA league with much more confidence than in the spring. During the ten days spent in the United States, he was again very successful.
– We joked that if someone didn’t know who I was before, there was no doubt that they would know after the trip.
And if someone for some reason hadn’t noticed the wild-haired Finn yet, he was noticed at Takuu when he was chosen as the PBA Rookie of the Year at the end of the year with a clear difference from the others.
– I knew that the voting result would be announced the following week, so when the phone rang and I saw that it was Tom Clark, I guessed what his business was.
By chance Santtu was visiting Simon Susiluoto at that time. The guy who at the beginning of the year persuaded him to go conquer the USA.
– I was fooling around with Clark when Simon threw his fists and said Hivä me! And the truth is, without Simon I would never have left.
Elsewhere, grandfather Kyösti took the news calmly.
– How to say it nicely… The title doesn’t live on, after all. A year ago, when she left for America, there was a question of who the hell Tahvanainen was from, somewhere in Ylöjärvi. Now everyone wants to win rookie of the year.
The grandfather is a little worried about how the boy will fare and would like to see him train a little more purposefully before leaving.
And after all, Santtu had planned to start physical training as well, but now nothing has come of it.
In the footsteps of Koivuniemi and Palermo
At the end of January, Tahvanainen started her first full season on the American pro tour with confidence. He has found that he can perform well under pressure, in front of television cameras.
– I want to show that I wasn’t a shooting star. I want to show that I can play a stable career and of course it’s more fun to bowl if you don’t lose, says Tahvanainen, who in recent years has lived from hand to mouth with small prize money and being “sponsored” by her grandfather.
Over the years, however, he has been able to watch from the sidelines how two Finnish bowlers have earned a living and more on the American pro tour.
In the years 1999–2019, Mika Koivuniemi played for a total of two million dollars in the United States, while Hit Palermo has collected more than half a million in more than ten years.
When Tahvanainen went to America last spring, the purpose was to smell the atmosphere and get an idea of what the professional tour is like. Then he came home with $19,000 in his pocket. Another 13,000 more prize money came from the PBA league.
– Yes, the world turned a bit upside down. I didn’t even win anything and the money came in just fine.
The 2023 PBA tour started in Indianapolis at the turn of January-February. In the opening race, Tahvanainen missed the preliminaries.
The competitions are held in different parts of the United States, and there are only a few days between them. The tour lasts the whole spring and the finals take place in the summer. The league will be played this year in September.
The value competition debut is still waiting
The year 2022 was successful for Finnish bowling. The men won a total of eight medals at the EC home games in Helsinki Tal.
One of Tahvanainen’s American trip friends, Tomas Käyhkö, was the best. He was involved in five medals, including the individual All Event silver.
At the Women’s European Championships in Denmark Peppi Konsteri won individual All Event gold and bronzes in pair and trio competitions.
As incredible as it sounds, the guy who was named PBA Rookie of the Year last year and has even been speculated to be the new Jason Belmonte has never competed in an adult competition. Australian Belmonte was Rookie of the Year in 2009 and has since been named Player of the Year seven times.
– There might have been something lazy and some requirements were not met, child of nature Santtu Tahvanainen explains and admits that nothing else would have been required other than filling out a training diary and submitting it to the national team coach.