Tuija Helander expects Viivi Lehikoinen to break her nearly 35-year-old Finnish record this summer. In Helander’s opinion, Lehikoinen’s pace has not been a surprise, but this season’s international level has been.
18:32•Updated 18:41
The World Athletics Championships (July 15–24) and European Championships (August 15–21) will be shown on channels this summer.
Viivi Lehikoinen has gotten closer and closer one tenth at a time this season Tuija Helanderin in 1987 ran the Finnish record time of 54.62 for the 400 meter hurdles. In June, the 22-year-old Lehikoinen was already 0.18 seconds behind, and on the day when Lehikoinen breaks that nearly 35-year-old SE time, Tuija Helander will be one of the happiest people.
– I have not been surprised by Viiv’s speed, Helander said and said that he had already seen a renewed Lehikoinen since last summer, whose run has been liberated and relaxed, the rhythm has been economical and the run has carried to the end.
– The development that the clock has shown also shows that the record will be recorded this summer. I believe that the time will be much closer to 54 seconds. I would bet that it’s somewhere around 54.20.
Exceptional individuals are starting to emerge
If Lehikoinen’s speed has not surprised Helander, the international level of the trip has been incomprehensible to him. During summer Sydney McLaughlin has clocked a new world record of 51.41 and is also the number one runner in Europe Femke Bol approaching the 52-second mark (52.27).
– That level means that they run a smooth 400 meters really hard. A terrible level. Viiv’s development has been expected, but this level of the world has been amazingly hard, Helander updated.
– Whatever the type of athletics, exceptional individuals start to emerge. They are optimal in their lever arms and muscles.
Quite a few results can be seen at the World Championships in Eugene, but Helander has been pleased above all by the fact that Finland will have two female runners in the 400 meter hurdles, Viivi Lehikoinen and Kristiina Halonen. In Helander’s opinion, the World Championships are a great place for both of them to improve their record and gain experience in big competitions.
– There they see the peaks of the world and the fact that they are quite ordinary people. Maybe it gives them confidence that the line hasn’t been drawn anywhere yet. Viiv has good opportunities at the best time of the summer.
Helander is familiar with Lehikoinen’s difficulties
Lehikoinen’s development has warmed Helander, because he has been following the young athlete since he saw him running fences at the age of 14. In Lehikoine, Helander’s wish for a young girl to take up the sport came true. The 400 meter hurdles is a sport that you don’t just jump into, you have to run a lot to learn it.
Lehikoinen has had a couple of difficult seasons behind him, which he openly talked about in an interview with Urheilu. New coach Laurent Meuwly has, however, made the course of development go again in a better direction.
Helander has been familiar with Lehikoinen’s difficulties, because as a young runner he also achieved a lot of good results, after which the expectations only grew.
– I thought that the Olympic medal was just waiting for me to go get it. Realism came like a rag to the face, when the career didn’t go so straight. I didn’t even believe in myself anymore and I had to rebuild my self-confidence, Helander recalled.
Helander also made tactical mistakes during his run at that time, because he and his coach focused on improving only the first 200 meters and reduced the number of steps between the fences. When Ari Salin became his coach, the focus shifted to the end of the journey. The 400-meter hurdles only start after the fifth hurdle, Helander reminded.
Lehikoinen has struggled with the same problem, and in Helander’s opinion, he did not have the qualities to easily run the first five fences at 15 paces until a couple of years ago. Lehikoinen returned to the rhythm of 16 steps with the new coach, and only when his condition and characteristics improved, he moved back to the original 15 steps.
– At that time, the ease of running disappeared due to delays. When you forcefully start trying some rhythm that is too hard for your own characteristics, it takes away the ease.
A monkey weighing a shield on his shoulders
When the results are not what is desired, it is easy for the athlete to get mentally stuck as well. Helander experienced it himself in his career, when runners from the Soviet Union and GDR dominated the sport. At that time, he remembered the Finnish sprint star Hläna to Marjamaa comment:
– He told me that “Tuija, you used to run hard when you were young. You are talented”. It has been a very important phrase for me and I clung to it then. I started to trust myself and work hard.
The World Championship gold has brought the young athlete pressure to succeed, but the spring that started well has brought difficulties. In May, a small stress fracture precursor was detected in Salminen’s tibia, which affected his training.
– He had to miss a couple of weeks, and after the spring camp in the south, a good speed training was replaced by pedaling a bike and a knee lift run on a high jump mat. There were a few Kisaks with a bit of a bad rhythm, but now he’s starting to recover, Helander said.
However, the doubles team has not changed its goals for the season to the World Junior Championships in Colombia in August. As the reigning champion, Salminen sets out to pursue first a place in the final and then a medal. Helander would also like to see Salminen run several good runs, and not just one hard one.
– The average of the five runs should be raised and stabilized between 57 and 58 seconds, or at least up to 58 seconds, while last summer it was mostly 59 seconds, excluding the World Championships.
Helander reminds that Salminen is only 18 years old, who has only been training for the third year with a goal in mind. As an athlete, Salminen is still raw, so they focus on progressing one step at a time and developing different qualities in training.
Helander knows from his own experience the many pitfalls of an athlete that his protégé can still run into. When the emotional side enters the patterns, reason does not always win.
– The feelings are so strong that some things have to go through the roof, but I can then give the medicines, how do we move forward. The world championship is quite a burden on a young athlete’s shoulders, but Heidi has a lot of potential, Helander stated.