In 2024, talks about Kosonen’s prize medal will no longer require going to the field, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen Sports journalist
When moukari’s World Cup qualification went well From Silja Kosose20, at least with a major victory, what happens then happened: expectations went wild, even medal talks started.
In the World Cup final, the medal was finally about one and a half meters away, so those expectations were not completely blown by the wind, even in the disappointed athlete’s own opinion.
A few numbers tell how exceptional the thrower is in his sport and in general. In the still relatively short history of the women’s shot put, which began in 1999, Kosonen would have been the youngest medalist, a few months apart from the Cuban sports legend Yippee to Moreno. Fourth place has been claimed twice in the World Championships by an athlete younger than him. Shot put is, if anything, a sport within athletics alongside discus throwing where experience is valuable.
With his fifth place, Kosonen was the second best European representative in the competition.
In his development, he advances his young coach Jani Pihkanen with on a stage where next year’s medal speeches will no longer require any kind of gallop behind them. The only 21-year-old athlete is one of Finland’s fiercest medal hopes at the Paris Olympics. Last time, with such expectations of the Summer Olympics, young athletes must have been burdened by iron champion swimmers, i.e. Antti Kasvion, Hanna-Maria Seppälän and Jani Sievinen by.
Adults really
Even this season, Kosonen talked about the under-23 European Championship in Espoo as a tough goal for the season. He took gold from them and ends the season as the number one in the world statistics of his age group. Now it’s really time for adults only games for adults; the woman has already progressed to the absolute top of the world.
Although shot put is a respected sport in Finland thanks to its long traditions, it is nevertheless a very exceptional choice for something that a young woman wants to put all her efforts into. Or almost everything.
Kosonen dares to swim against the current in several matters. I found a place to study Germanic philology at the University of Turku – at the same time as the number of people interested in the German language and participating in yo writings has actually collapsed in Finland.
The story is almost too sympathetic to be true, but it is true. Kosonen lives in his own cottage in his parents’ yard in Raisio, is passionate about green plants and trains in a rock cave, where his father and coach have built training facilities with the help of the city. Manager Harry Halme came into the picture when the athlete dared to call him at the age of 17.
Halme, who has helped dozens of different athletes, considers Kosos to be an extremely precocious person, whose parents have never interfered with things that belong to the coach and manager – rarer wisdom from sports parents than one might think.
So where did it all come from? At the time, the parents took their 8-year-old daughter to get to know the “funny sport” they saw on TV.
The end will probably be history after next summer’s two championships at the latest.