Pitkamaki finally strikes gold 02. September 07

Osaka, Japan - It was the 17th and final session of the World Championships on Sunday and Finland was still waiting for its first medal, still waiting for even a top-eight finisher. Then along came the men’s javelin and Tero Pitkamaki. Suddenly it was as if night had turned into day. Or winter into summer.

Pitkamaki gave his country the best celebration it could have, taking the biggest medal of his career so far – World Championships gold. Traditionally, up to 50 per cent of the country’s 5 million population watches the men’s Javelin Throw on television during major championships and Pitkamaki will have sent them into delirium.

After a steadily improving record, but no gold medal, Pitkamaki finally found the measure of his opponents. European Under-23 bronze medallist in 2003, 8th in the Olympics in 2004, 4th in the World Championships in 2005, and silver medallist in the European Championships last year, now a top place on the podium is his at last.

Rome accident a turning point

It was a triumph of mind over torment. In Rome eight weeks ago Pitkamaki launched a wayward javelin towards the Long Jump where it struck Salim Sdiri, a French competitor. Penetrating Sdiri’s upper body, he suffered an horrific injury as Pitkamaki buried his head in his hands over what had happened.

Recalling how it had affected him, Pitkamaki said: “I had an up and down moment. That accident was a terrible thing and we both were very lucky. Now it feels even better after those bad days.”

Hannu Kangas, Pitkamaki’s coach, underlined how traumatic a time it had been for his athlete. “Of course it was really difficult,” Kangas said. “The first week after Rome was awful. But we went little by little and had some very good training sessions.”

“Then, in his first competition afterwards, in Lapinlahti, he threw over 91 metres. So then I said that it would take a very strong guy to beat Tero in Osaka. We turned a sad thing into a victory for mental power.” Pitkamaki’s 91.23 in Lapinlahti, was the second longest throw of the year, only six centimetres short of the leading mark of Breaux Greer, of the USA, in Indianapolis in June.

Coming only nine days after the Rome incident, Pitkamaki’s comeback in Lapinlahti set him back on the winning trail. Unbeaten before Rome, where his mind was hardly worrying about his second-place finish behind Norwegian rival Andreas Thorkildsen, he is undefeated since.

With the gold medal in the bag from his 87.72 fourth round throw, Pitkamaki’s last effort cleared the 90 metres line, his 90.33 going into the record books as the third longest at a World Championships. He is the fourth Finnish world champion after Seppo Raty (1987), Kimmo Kinnunen (1991) and Aki Parviainen (1999).

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