Triple jumper Kristiina Mäkelä is not in a hurry to qualify for the prestigious competitions. An experienced competition visitor knows what is needed at that time, but at the European Championships in Munich, he also wants success in the finals.
Joel Holma,
Anu Karttunen
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During the Kaleva Games in Joensuu Kristiina Mäkelä didn’t think about the European Championships at all. He didn’t want to worry about the future too much, but took one thing at a time, and it resulted in the eighth consecutive triple jump Finnish championship.
After the Kaleva Games, Mäkelä shifted her thoughts to Munich and the European Championships, where she will go as bravely as she did the World Championships in Oregon with the gleam of a medal in her eyes.
– My absolute goal is to win a medal, because I shouldn’t aim for anything else from the Games. It’s quite possible, but then you also have to succeed really well, Mäkelä stated.
When talking about the 29-year-old Mäkelä, one can rightly call him a value race hero. After the Junior World and European Championships, he has represented Finland in the European Championships three times, in the World Championships four times and in the Olympics twice. In addition to this, Mäkelä has competed four times in the European Indoor Championships and three times in the Indoor World Championships.
In recent years, Mäkelä has been a familiar sight in the finals of prestigious competitions, but often his best result has been in the qualifiers. That was also the case at the World Championships in Oregon, where he jumped his new record of 14.48 in qualifying.
According to Mäkelä, the idea that the qualifier goes better for him than the final is not entirely true. At the beginning of his career, his only goal was to reach the finals, when everything was aimed only at qualifying. Now that the qualifying has gone well, he has begun to focus more on the finals.
– On paper, it still looks like I will only succeed in qualifying and will never be able to succeed in the final, but the truth is that the level of my jumping has improved all the time. On average, the lengths of the best jumps have increased, Mäkelä said.
– The idea that I would go and change something radically now, it’s not worth it. I should specifically stick to the development curve that has been, and hope that it clicks into the right place once.
No more fine tuning
The World Championships in Oregon, skipped in July, left a good memory mark for Mäkelä, a new record. Mäkelä was particularly pleased that the record was set on the first jump of the qualifiers, and even though he was unable to repeat the same in the finals, there was also a positive lesson. However, he only noticed this after meeting his coach Tuomas Sallinen with.
– After the final, I didn’t feel like I had succeeded. Actually, the first and last jumps in the final would have been long enough if I had hit the plank. It warms my heart to know that I was in no way significantly worse in shape in the final. It just didn’t hit the spot.
After the final, Mäkelä said, among other things, in an interview with Urheilu that he couldn’t get his run to go the same way as in the qualifiers. In a way, he was relieved to know that the good result was exhausted, but at the same time, he was also annoyed by how small everything is.
– It’s starting to depend on the fine tuning of how it works, he stated.
“We start from scratch”
Mäkelä doesn’t remember much about his record jump from less than a month ago, but he has been able to analyze the jump with Salline carefully afterwards. He also knows what to take away from it for the future.
– The key thing is that I finish it properly and get in a good position to push off the plank. I have enough strength to keep my defection together. If I could still make those intermediate jumps jump, that would be perfect.
Mäkelä has managed to get the kind of contacts in practice during the intermediate jumps that he seeks for his competition jumps, but not all of his potential has yet been unleashed in the competitions.
If Mäkelä can set a record at the European Championships in Munich, the results can be anything. In the World Championships, Mäkelä was the second best European in the finals for Portugal Patricia Mamona after and in European statistics, he is tied for second place with Germany Neele Eckhardt-Noackin with. Even if the statistics indicate success, Mäkelä doesn’t want to stare at them.
– The truth is that we are starting from scratch at the European Championships. No statistics or previous results are any more towards home or victory, but those jumps have to be made from the beginning, in that race, in those days, Mäkelä reminded.
– And that decides who is the best. I have experience, and that helps, but I just have to put all that experience to use and hope that I can succeed at the right time. Everything is done to make sure that happens.