World Cup silver! Saga Vanninen, 20, made a big splash – in many ways Finnish sports history | Sport

Finland Saga Vanninen has made a big splash at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Glasgow, Scotland.

Vanninen won silver in the pentathlon. It is the first medal in Finnish history brought by a woman from the World Indoor Championships.

Belgium won the 5-a-side match Noor Vidts with a score of 4,774. Vanninen’s score was 4,677, which is also a new Finnish record. Holland took the bronze Sofir Dokter with a score of 4,571.

The World Indoor Track and Field Championships have been organized since 1985, with a couple of exceptions, every other year. The only medal in Finland’s WC indoor history is Mika Halvarin gold in the shot put in Barcelona 1995.

Now in Finland, there was a lot of hope that that sad streak would end. However, the eyes were directed to Saturday night and the pole vault final, where the Finnish star will jump Wilma Murto. The medalless pipe was broken the day before.

20-year-old Saga Vanninen is known as a Finnish super promise. In 2021, he won EC gold and WC gold in the under-20 heptathlon. The following summer, he renewed his World Championship gold in Colombia. In the summer of 2023, Vanninen won the EC gold in the under-23 heptathlon in Espoo.

From the adult European Championships, Vannis has the tenth place in the 7-match from 2022 and the fifth place in the 5-match indoor track from 2023. Last summer, she competed in her first adult World Championships and was ninth in Budapest.

Now a Finnish-unique medal rang out – of course, the world’s top names were missing wholesale from the indoor track World Cup medals, such as Nafissatou Thiam, Anna Hall, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Anouk Vetter and Adrianna Sulek.

This is how Match Day progressed

Before the 5-match of the World Cup, Vanninen said that he has suffered from back problems during the hall-of-fame season. That’s why he had competed sparingly.

– There aren’t terribly many goals when it’s unclear what condition I’m in. A basic intact match would be nice.

In the first event, in the 60-meter hurdles, Vanninen ran second in his heat. Vanninen’s time of 8.33 was his best of the season.

– A really good opening for Saga. It’s actually the same as his record streak, Urheilu’s expert Tuomas Raja comment.

Vanninen was seventh in the opening event and received 1,055 points. Spain had the fastest pace Maria Vicente8.07.

Vicente was injured in another sport, the high jump. He was taken away on a stretcher.

Vanninen exceeded 179, got 966 points and came second overall. The best in height (182) was from Sweden Bianca Salming.

Then Vanninen overwhelmingly won the pentathlon shot put with a result of 15.01. Noor Vidts was second with a result of 14.26.

Vanninen got 862 points and passed Vidts to the top of the competition.

Vanninen’s coach Jesse Jokinen did not consider his protégé’s morning performances far from perfect.

– Maybe I’m surprised by the ranking, but the performances were at the Saga level we’ve been moving at. He had a good, solid opening match, and you have to be satisfied with the successes of the three sports.

The coach was relieved by the height result, because it has been enough to work with in training. In the fast fences, Vanninen’s start even failed a little. In Kuula, Vanninen performed according to his basic level, because it is a very strong sport for a Finn.

Jokinen reminded that the distance is an extremely sensitive sport when the morning’s sports are already behind. You have to get your feet wet again when there are only three companies.

– I believe that Saga has a good chance for both remaining sports. However, length plays a big role. After that, everything is possible, thought Jokinen calmly.

In the length, Vanninen put in a comfortable 619 on his first jump. The second jump was overstepped. In the last one, however, 641 shook wonderfully.

– An intelligent jump, even though the second one, barely overstepped, looked even further. Nice settings for 800 meters, admired coach Jokinen.

The worst threat, the Belgian Vidts, pushed the length to no less than 650. He rose nine points ahead of Vannis. It was known that Vidts is usually ten seconds faster than Vanninen in the final distance of 800 meters. Nine points were scored in only about 0.7 seconds. In this sense, the World Cup silver was realism.

In the final distance of 800 meters, Vanninen was eighth with a time of 2:20.54. That’s his record.

Vanninen’s final score was 4,677. It is a new Finnish record.

Tiia Hautala Finland’s record 24 years ago was 4,580 points.