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TERO CAUSES A STIR IN KUORTANE

(Ponsse Oyj, 5 July 2005)

The Eliittikisat competition in Kuortane has strong javelin traditions. Before this year’s competition, Kuortane had witnessed two results in the world’s all-time top five:

Finnish national record, 93.09 metres, by Aki Parviainen in 1999, which is in the second longest throw of all time, and the fifth result by Grecian Kostas Gatsioudis, 91.69 metres, in 2000. In 1996 Jan Zelezny threw 91.04 metres.
This year it was Tero’s turn – the best result in three years, 91.53 metres, and all-time sixth best result in the world.

The general feeling before the event suggested that Tero was in good condition but he was not aiming at a throw beyond the 90-metre line this year. The set objective of 87.50 metres was clearly exceeded, providing strong support for the season’s main objective – a medal in the World Championships. Tero’s objectives are tough but realistic!

Last summer’s Olympic gold medallist, Norwegian Andreas Thorkildsen, improved his personal best twice to 86.82 metres; at that point Tero’s record-breaking throw was still high up in the air.

Golden League

Less than a week after Kuortane, Pitkämäki focused on the season’s first Golden League competition in Paris on 1 July. During the eight-year history of the Golden League, no Finnish athlete has ever won a competition. This year’s event included all the world’s leading athletes. Tero took the scalps of all of them.

The competition boosted Tero’s confidence going to the World Championships in Helsinki. The result of 85.95 metres was a wonderful performance in headwind (a following wind being the best option) and on a throwing area made slippery by showers; no-one was able to match Tero’s performance. One week earlier, the result would have been Tero’s personal best. Tero regards the good performance immediately following the perfect throw in Kuortane as significant and important.

Tero’s next competition will be the Golden League competition in Rome Friday on 8 July.