Athletics World Championships 19.8.–27.8. On ‘s channels See the schedule and broadcast information of the games at this link.
When Wilma Murto answers the question about his goals at the World Championships in Budapest, he reads the game as skillfully as the changing conditions in the pressure cooker of the pole vault venue.
The reigning European champion, the third in the world statistics and the athlete who took the historic Diamond League competition victory knows what is expected of him.
He does not deny that he is going on the first trip of his life to Hungary with very high goals, but one core value drives even these medal dreams integrated into the life of a top athlete.
– I really don’t believe in the idea that the goal is gold and everything else is a huge disappointment. The best thing about sports for me is that every day brings a new opportunity, and for me it has now brought me the opportunity to even realistically aim for the World Cup gold, Murto opened in the indoor training space of the Lahti stadium on the Saturday evening of the Kaleva Games at the end of July.
During the interview with Urheilu, he was supposed to be in the pole vault final, but it was postponed to Sunday due to heavy rain.
Handsome traditions
Although men’s or later women’s pole vaulting has not been for decades, in fact before Murto and this year, a sport that would have Finnish medal expectations in adult competitions, the traditions are handsome.
An article about the history of Finnish pole vaulting will be published in October Teijo Piilonen a book that sheds light on these wonderful traditions. Finnish jumpers have achieved Olympic medals, EC medals even in gold both outdoors and indoors, and even a world record has been set.
But: during the 40-year World Cup tradition, no medal has been achieved. And the previous Finnish pole vaulter, who would have been surprised and disappointed to be without a medal in the prestigious competition, was Antti Kalliomäki in 1978 at the European Championships in Prague. His corner lasted for a silver medal.
In fact, between 1948 and 1978, pole vaulting was the athletics sport that produced the most prestigious medals for Finland, even ahead of javelin. And at that time only men jumped from the pole, both men and women threw the spear.
Same winning result
In last year’s two prestigious competitions, the World Championships in Eugene and the European Championships in Munich, the winning score was the same, i.e. 485. In Eugene, the reigning Olympic champion of the USA won Katie Moon. Murto celebrated gold in Munich.
Although Murto, who jumped fifth in the Olympic finals in Tokyo 2021 alongside two other competing sisters, finished at least satisfactorily sixth in Eugene, the problems of last summer are still digging her a little.
At the end of January 2022, he hit his foot badly on the edge of the pit. The rehabilitation of the navicular injury took three months and extended the start of the competition season and the recovery.
– I believe that without it I could very well have achieved the World Cup medal in Eugene. After Eugene, there were a few weeks to train before Munich, and that time was much needed.
In athletics, there are still some sports where the top of Europe is almost the same as the top of the world. However, in women’s pole vaulting, expectations should be balanced so that it really does not belong to these sports.
Only four out of a dozen
Of the top 12 in this season’s world statistics (athletes from Russia and Belarus are not taken into account), only four women could compete in the European Championship, and only Murto is the top quartet.
– Predicting the nature of the competition now is always a bit of a lottery, but let’s say that my level at last year’s European Championships in Budapest would be medal level and five cents on top of that would be gold level. Of course, this is not set in stone, says Murto.
The top score of the season is just Katie Moon’s 490. Between Murro (480) and the American is New Zealand’s Eliza McCartney (485).
Murto is well aware that his career is still largely defined by two exceptional performances. In Zweibrücken, Germany, the own record improved by 16 cents to the junior ME readings of 471 on the last day of January 2016.
And “immediately after” the record was improved by 13 cents on the fairytale evening of the European Championships in Munich on August 17, 2022.
Between these two points in time, Murto certainly didn’t just tread flat or uphill in his career. The maturation process was incomplete in every way, the coaches changed, the level of results dropped.
– The youth world record brought a lot of opportunities, but it was also quite stressful mentally. Comparing in this way, the overall balance of the European Championship gold in Munich is clearly more purely positive.
From teenage girl to fame
The Zweibrücken sensation brought a new element to Murro’s life, namely publicity management. At first, the coach tried to control it Jarno Koivunenbut now a manager for a long time Tero Heiska.
The teenager became famous in an instant. Few people remembered that the unknown schoolboy was actually on the verge of getting a place at the World Championships in Beijing in 2015.
Between these two periods mentioned above, there was a sports performance that meant a lot to Murro and which he wants to bring up separately, he even considers it “needlessly forgotten”.
At the Tampere Kaleva Games on August 29, 2021, the bar was raised to a height of 472 centimeters, and it stayed there. The last time Murto had improved his record 5 years and 8 months, or roughly 2070 days earlier. In the meantime, not everyone left training and competition with their mouth full of wheat, so to speak.
– Ratina’s jump freed a lot. A big and quite well-fed monkey fell from the back. Even during the difficult seasons (2017–2020), I did not despair. I was sure that things would turn out for the best. That result in Tampere perhaps proved it to outsiders as well.
– Yes, the sustaining force back then was the inner fire, the passion and the understanding of one’s own abilities, that somehow one will definitely come here again.
Even though Murto cried a lot, now at the age of 25, he is even grateful for the adversities in a humble way.
– If I could start again now as teenage Wilma, I still wouldn’t wish for any linear gilded path. I am grateful for all experiences. I’m only 25 and I can say that I know my physical and mental side exceptionally deeply precisely because everything didn’t go easily.
An ideal starting point
Murto arrives in Budapest in a situation that every top jumper strives for: a progressive sense of climbing condition, excellent test results in pit entry speed, strong confidence in the new, stiff 475-centimeter wings. A short journey to the venues without the stress of time difference.
Budapest no longer competes at the legendary NEP stadium, as it was demolished in 2017. Murto plans to visit the city’s new arena, built on the banks of the Danube, before qualifying.
– You have to make such a spatial representation, because jumping is largely about aiming the jump at a certain point. I take a look at what can be seen next to and behind the pole position, so that nothing surprises me in the field of vision during qualifying. The history of pole vaulting shows that qualifying cannot be taken lightly.
Even if Murto, as a World Cup medalist, would make Finnish sports history, the capital of the brother nation is also about an intermediate stage towards the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. In France, pole vaulting is traditionally a highly respected sport.
Ghost limit at 26 years old
– I have said that the goal is to jump five meters at the age of 26.
That’s how Murto turns a month and a half before the opening of the Paris Games next summer.
Even though Murto was already an unusually precocious young athlete at the threshold of adulthood, the European Championship gold in Munich put him on top of the nation’s closet in a way that could cause a lot of turbulence in many people’s heads.
Murto admits that he indulged in critical self-examination around the subject.
– I don’t think it has changed me. It has changed my life. I became very famous in Finland. In order to protect your own space, you have to be able to say “no” quite often.
Professionally, Murto sees that one, very important thing in itself, has changed:
– Let’s pay better for it now.
Women’s pole vault qualifying on Monday 21.8. at 7:40 p.m. Women’s pole vault final on Wednesday 23.8. at 8:30 p.m. shows the World Cup live.