Wilma Murro’s performance seems to ensure that a basketball player will be chosen as Athlete of the Year for the first time ever, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen Sports journalist
Athletics World Championships 19.8.–27.8. Ylen channels. See the schedule and broadcast information of the games at this link.
Wilma Murto went to the World Championships in Budapest as no less than two-time European champion, and as European champion, he also goes home from Hungary to Finland and to his brother’s wedding with a bronze medal in his luggage.
Murto held on to her position as Europe’s best female jumper in the loaf-shaped World Cup stadium, but women’s pole vaulting has – like so many other sports in athletics – escaped from European dominance to reach others as well.
Of the 39 World Cup medals in the sport, 22 have been strung around the neck of a jumper who represented a European country, but the relative share is decreasing. Great jumpers come from all continents except Africa.
Australian Nina Kennedy and the USA Katie Moon raised the gold medal dress too high for Murro. At the World Championships, the gold medalist has jumped higher Four times than the top two who shared the win on Wednesday.
The guess almost hit
During the Lahti Kaleva Games, Murto bet that his level in Munich, i.e. 485, would be enough for a medal in Budapest and five cents on top of that for a gold medal. As for the gold medal, the guess was right.
The bronze result of 480 is excellent for Murro, because in the frenzy built around the woman, it is easy to forget that such heights are not familiar ground for her. In Budapest, 480 was exceeded for the fourth time in his entire long career.
The importance of Murro’s medal for Finnish sports, athletics and women’s sports is enormous. The woman’s popularity and role model influence is extreme, and Murto acts and behaves accordingly.
Statistics show that medals in athletics are not commonplace for Finnish women at the World Cup and Olympic level. From the previous one, it was 27 years at the Olympic level and 28 years at the World Cup level.
Handsome history
Of course, those two came from the javelin throw, and within the Finnish athletics family, Murto now made handsome history. Finland had never before achieved a World Cup medal in the so-called vertical jumps.
Before Murto, the previous person from these sports who went to the prestigious competitions as a medal favorite at all was the then long-term parliamentarian Antti Kalliomäkiwho at the European Championships in Prague 1978 also withstood medal expectations, as did Murto on Wednesday.
Good news for basketball
What else does Murro’s WC bronze mean? Very likely, at least, that a basketball player will be selected as the Athlete of the Year for the first time in Finland.
To Tero Pitkämäki dull World Cup medals were enough for selection in both 2013 and 2015, but this time hardly for Murro, when the opponent is Lauri Markkanen. Surprisingly, the woman was last time chosen Sportswoman of the Year 2012.
Next year, Murto will be even stronger in the game, when no less than two prestigious races will be jumped. At the European Championships in Rome, he is already the favorite to win on this curve, and the medal favorite at the Olympic Games in Paris.
Next season, Murto will turn 26, and he has recently promised to jump five meters. If he lives up to his words, it will radically change the situation in Paris as well.
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