BUDAPEST. – The hair comes from the head and chest, a blue-white beard and shirt from Tampere Jussi Okkonen vibrates on the platform of the lower stand of the stadium, from where it is a stone’s throw away to the pole vaulting place.
– I’ll go with you. Breast sugaring if Wilma takes today! Okkonen’s travel companion Erkka Rajala comp.
The Wednesday evening of the World Cup has been loaded with a fair dose of Finnish expectations. Javelin thrower Tero Pitkämäki three days and eight years have passed since the last World Cup medal won by a Finnish track and field athlete, the bronze.
The previous non-javelin brought MM metal, long jumper Tommi Evilän bronze, has to apply since 2005. Mikaela Ingberg was the first woman to reach the podium at the World Championships – bronze at that time – in 1995.
The sea of a couple of hundred Finns pouring into the Budapest stadium swears in unison that the pipes in question will break in the pole vault final on a hot evening. There are expectations Wilma Murtothe reigning European champion of outdoor and indoor tracks.
Behind Murro is a people’s movement that doesn’t look at genre boundaries. In the stands of Seivaskaarte, you can see well-known Finnish football players like Teemu Pukin, by Linda Sällström and Jari Litmanena basketball player Lauri Markkanen and a hockey player Sebastian Ahon jerseys.
– It’s my first time at the athletics championships. I have toured abroad in Tappara’s games, but when asked here, I had to agree, Rajala states, but corrects immediately afterwards:
– When I was 8 years old, I haven’t been to a javelin carnival in Pihtiputaa under the supervision of my parents. But it doesn’t count.
Rajala and Okkonen’s choice of outfits encapsulates the theme of the evening: the carnival of Finnish athletics is underway, with 25-year-old Murto from Salola as the leading star.
– Strong belief that Wilma will win today. The winning score is 485 or 490. It’s a battle of spirits. Katie Moon is tough, but the summer’s Diamond League games showed that Wilma is his toughest opponent, who arrived in Budapest with his wife Esko Kontio picket.
– After the EC halls, we decided to go see Wilma. Of course there are other Finns, but because of Wilma, places were reserved in this curve, Fairy tale Kontio says.
Even though the athletes are just training, the Finnish supporters are already tuning up their vocal cords by shouting the first name of their favorite athlete. Because Murto is also known among foreigners.
– Wilma and that US-girl, Slovenians Ines and Stanicka name the race’s pre-favorites, referring to Murto and USA’s Moon, the season’s statistical number one, who is also the reigning Olympic champion and world champion.
Despite the fact that the audience following the final of the pole vault with a precise comb is already holding the house from the warm-up phase, the women pole vaulters are not the center of attention of the nearly 40,000-strong audience.
The mainstream of athletics has focused on the running track instead of the field sports. A quick gallup in another stadium shows that the names Wilma and Murto do not mean much to the public. Not even for Norwegians.
– No bells are ringing. We are more after runs, Karsten Warholm and Jakob Ingebrigtsen arrived to support Nils Henrik Stocke states.
In a weak position
It is easy to understand the mindset of a Norwegian supporter. In its activities, the international athletics federation World Athletics has emphasized running sports that are more approachable than the technically difficult pole vault.
Few places in the world have the necessary equipment for pole vaulting at all, let alone the know-how, while running practically only requires willpower.
– You had a good hurdler last year, Stocke can dig out of his memory, referring to the reigning EC gold medalist in the 3,000-meter hurdles Topi Raitasen.
In the international TV picture, the presentation of running sports practically always goes past the performances of field sports. The TV viewer does hear the events of the field sports from the shudder of the audience, but they only see them replayed at the time deemed best by the director.
On the spot, however, the field sports take their audience when the pole vault final begins.
After the opening heights of 435 and 450, each of the 12 finalists is still in the competition. Murto opens the game at 450 and clears it on his first attempt. After that, there is no doubt as to who has the biggest support from the public behind him.
Organized activity
In this millennium, the visible product of Finnish top sports has been supporting the national team.
Organized supporter groups have been prominently featured in prestigious competitions in volleyball, basketball and football.
In 2018, the athletics circles also became active in pursuit of community spirit, when the Athletics Fanit ry was founded. The activity is still marginal compared to team sports, but success fuels the growth of the activity.
– Through athletics fans, there is a group of about 50 people here. Then there is another group of supporters of the same size. In addition, there are scattered groups. In total, there are at least 200 supporters here, a tourism entrepreneur who arrived through Athletics fans Timo Saranpää says and notes that in the 1970s, the number of Finns who participated in value competitions was over a thousand.
– When next year marks the 50th anniversary of the European Championships in Rome in 1974, I’m sure that there will be a lot more people than now. Right now, Wilma is Finland’s biggest athletics magnet, and its success fuels the number of supporters who go to the Games, Saranpää estimates.
A young species
In the pole vault final, the bar has been raised to 475. There are eight more women, but 475 should be the so-called watershed height in light of the statistics.
The fraction exceeds the height in its first just like the previous one (465). After 475, there are only five women in the medal fight. When Murto surpasses the next 480, also on his first time, the medal starts to be close at hand.
– Wilma is an unimaginably calm person. I’m starting to cry a little, Oulu native Arto Naakso tells.
– If Wilma goes over the next height, she wins, who came to watch the final with Naakso Tuomo Kilpeläinen forecast.
In the final, we now move at heights that are disconcerting when compared to the history of women’s pole vault competitions. It goes back to 1998, when Murto was born.
In the same year, the sport debuted at the EC level in the same city of Budapest. At that time, a score of 431 was required for EC gold – the bar was therefore four centimeters lower than the starting height of this year’s WC final.
So it’s safe to say that women’s pole vaulting has taken a mammoth leap in development during Murro’s lifetime.
With Murro in 480 gold yachts are shared by Moon of the United States, Australia Nina Kennedy and Slovenian Tina Sutej. Of the four, Sutej is in the weakest position because he has failed attempts from previous heights in his record.
In order to overtake the 34-year-old Finn, Sutej has to jump higher than Murto.
Sutej fails three times, which ensures Murro’s first career WC medal. However, the euphoria of the two-hundred-year-old Finnish audience subsides momentarily, as Murro’s final also ends with three failures in 485.
There are conflicting feelings in Murro’s core camp.
– The third is a lost place in a way, because the others still continue the race, but Wilma got to her level nicely, the father of the pole star Matti Murto states in the audience.
– In the end, this went well. Feeling quite speechless, Sari’s mother is shaking.
A fabulous decision
When Murto won the gold medal at the European Championships in Munich last year, 77-year-old Lydia from Germany, a long-time family friend of the Murtos, followed the celebrations in the stands of the Olympic stadium.
Murrot has once again been able to attract significant background forces to Budapest. In the early 1980s, Sari Murto spent her exchange student year with an Australian family whose daughter Leoni Andersson has traveled with her husband from Adelaide via Doha to Budapest.
Wilma Murto got her first name from Andersson’s mother Wilma Dunne by.
– We have such a Murto clan. Wilma is already 89 years old and not such an active e-mail user. But here he sent a short message wishing him luck, says Sari Murto.
Andersson’s World Cup journey finally has a magical end, as Australian jumper Kennedy sets his country’s record and eventually shares the gold medal with American Moon.
– Seeing this race in the stands was crazy for me. I had only seen about Wilma’s golden performances on Instagram and the videos sent by Sari. I am very happy we came here. This was like a fairy tale, Andersson says.