Career|During his career, Tapio Suominen had time to narrate major sporting events. Getting sick brought a big turn in his life, but it didn’t stop the storytelling.
Narrator legend Tapio Suominen had time for many things during his life. Suominen, who died on Wednesday at the age of 60, had a long career as a sports commentator for Yle, which had several highlights. During and also after that, there were many twists and turns in Suominen’s life.
Up in 1988
The starting shot Suominen’s “public” life happened in 1988, when he started working for Yle’s sports department as a summer reporter. At first, he did stories for Urheiluruutu and gradually moved more into a commentator.
In HS’s 60th anniversary interview, Suominen states that he described 49 sports. When this spring, fairgrounds came along, he counted it as his 50th sport.
Suominen named the games of the American “Dream Team” basketball team at the Barcelona Olympics, the soccer World Cup final between France and Italy in 2006 and the commentary of the men’s 200 meters final at the Berlin World Cup in 2009 as his personal highlights.
“The first dream team, i.e. Dream Team, was assembled for the United States at the Barcelona Olympics. The team included all the biggest NBA stars About Michael Jordan to Magic Johnson. Salmen Pentti had just retired and I got to report basketball at the age of 28. The young boy was about to pee in his pants,” Suominen said For the Future of the Countryside in 2019.
Usain Bolt won the 200m final with a ME time of 19.19. Suominen acted exceptionally in his explanation.
“I can say with all my heart that I almost never think about what I say in my presentations in advance. But that time I made an exception. I thought Bolthan means lightning strike. And when he broke away from the others on the front straight, I said: ‘Look at Bolt, he comes like a million volts,'” Suominen said of HS In the 60th anniversary interview.
Illness in 2013
Finnish suffered from mental health problems and ended up in Lohja Paloniemi hospital in the psychiatric department for seven weeks. The diagnosis was psychotic depression. Suominen received electrotherapy as well as continuous medication and therapy.
However, Suominen returned to work for Yle, but in February 2014, people were shocked when Suominen did not even host the studio broadcasts of the Winter Olympics. Suominen had to be hospitalized again.
Now he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Fired from Yle in 2018 and the verdict in the courts
Getting sick led to many excesses and finally, in 2018, to being fired from Yle: Suominen had assaulted a security guard in Yle’s parking garage.
Suominen was sentenced in the Helsinki district court to a reduced charge of assault and illegal threat to a 30-day fine and damages. According to the medical certificate, he was suffering from the manic phase of bipolar disorder at the time of the incident.
Suominen’s career at Yles lasted about 30 years. Potkut was a difficult place and Kohut did not stay there. Among other things, he was caught several times for drunk driving. For example, in 2021 this happened every two days.
Returning as a narrator in 2019
Finnish got a disability pension due to his illness, but he also returned to the narration booth. It happened on July 27, 2019. The sport was surprising: the Mäkiautojen SM event at Pyynik in Tampere. The broadcast was seen on the Ruutu service.
In the fall of 2019, Suominen also returned more regularly as a sports commentator. He started explaining the Korisliiga matches. Gradually, the range of sports expanded to football and volleyball.
In addition, Suominen returned as a stand-up comedian. He had already tried the industry before during the Yle era, but then he had to give it up.
In his last years, Suominen also did host gigs, organized sports quizzes and was also writing two books. Dekkari is being processed by the publisher and a performance book together Lasse Lindqvist with was left unfinished, but Lindqvist plans to finish it.
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