The European athletics team championship held in Chorzow, Poland, at midsummer was not a ticket sales success.
Every TV viewer could tell this every time the pictures showed the results of the sports during the three competition days. In the background of the results list, a wide picture of the stands of Chorzow’s 55,000-capacity stadium was visible.
They hummed their emptiness.
– It felt really bad, the manager legend who organized hundreds of international level athletics competitions Jukka Härkönen says.
The European team championship was organized in its current form for the first time.
In the past, European athletics countries were divided into levels, the highest of which was called the Super League. When the countries fought for superiority the last time two years ago, Finland belonged to the second highest league, i.e. the first division. In that, Finland ranked sixth.
Normally, a country has to finish in the top three in its division to move up the ladder. However, Finland made it to the main league of this year’s EC team competition, because the number of its teams was increased from eight to 16.
The large number of teams meant that the duration of each race day stretched to four hours.
– In one-day competitions, the aim is to achieve a peak moment lasting two hours. Against that background, that’s a grim concept. You have to be quite an athletics freak to be able to sit, watch and follow. If one particular athlete’s performance happens to slip by, we have to wait a long time for the next one, says Härkönen.
Level differences too big
In several European countries, you simply cannot find an international-level athlete for every sport. In this case, the level differences can easily become enormous.
For example, in the women’s triple jump, the winning result was over 14 meters (14.15), but more than half of the 16 competitors were below 13 meters. In the women’s shot put, the Norwegian athlete was more than six meters behind the winner, and in the discus the range was between 66 and 43 meters. Similar differences were also seen in the men’s competitions.
– Do the countries of the European Union feel that this competition will develop athletics in some way? Do they feel that this is of clear benefit to the athletes? What is the function of this race? Härkönen ponders.
Nowadays, the athletics calendar is full of big competitions, from which athletes have the opportunity to earn a living. There is no prize money in the EC team competition, but it falls on an important stage at the time.
– The race organizers of Ostrava (27.6.) and Lausanne (30.6.) are gritting their teeth to see how many will make it to the games healthy. The people who are the attraction of the games in question are needed fresh for them, Härkönen reminds.
For an individual athlete who has not achieved the result limit required for the World Championships in Budapest, the ranking points that were distributed were the most important of the European Championship team competition in Poland. However, due to the differences in the level of the competition, the event belongs to the B category, i.e. the same as, for example, the Kuortane Games.
– Hats off to the athletes. Even though there was no lat lat in the division, certain athletes achieved extremely good results, Härkönen enthuses.
How in the future?
If Härkönen could decide, the EC team competition would not be held in the future. If the manager legend’s wish does not come true, he would increase the number of relay races.
– Messages would give the games a certain spark. At the same time, the number of relay races affecting the value race ranking could be increased.
Chorzow’s glaring audience loss is problematic, especially in the sense that Poland is by many measures the best athletics country in Europe.
Poland won the Superliga, which preceded the EC team competition, on two previous occasions, in 2019 and 2021. In addition, it was the number one in Europe in terms of medals and points at last year’s World Championships in Oregon and third in the medal statistics at the European Championships in Munich.
Härkönen does not believe that the EC team competition would fill the stands even outside of Poland.
– I don’t know any country where the stands would be filled with the current concept. You should go to the old Soviet Union, where it was ordered that the stands are filled.
This year’s EC athletics team competition was part of the European Games multi-sport event organized by the Association of European Olympic Committees.
– It somehow feels that the workforce of the national Olympic committees needs to take a walk away from the office from time to time. I don’t see any sense in that, says Härkönen.