Athletics | How many people know that there is a pole vault world champion in Finland who won his first SC medal already 20 years ago? “Another five years should develop”

Joensuu

Men’s There is nostalgia in the air of the pole vault final on Friday evening at Joensuu’s hot Keskuskent.

Mikael Westö competed at the same jumping place 20 years ago, when Joensuu held the last time the World Championships in Athletics, the Kaleva Games.

In July 2002, Westö, as a twenty-something pole vaulter, took his first WC bronze with a result of 505 cents. Mikko Latvala won (555) and Toni Latvala was second (535).

After that, there were four more bronzes (2005, 2011, 2014 and 2016). He won SM silver in 2006–2008 and another fourth in 2015.

“I didn’t have very good memories of the 2002 race, there was a strong crosswind. There was an even group of three or four jumpers who could jump it between 505 and 510”, 40-year-old Westö remembers.

Triple Jumper Senni Salminen current coach Matti Mononen would have struggled for medals, but at the same time he was at the Junior World Championships in Jamaica, where he was seventh in the final (535).

On Friday, Westö will compete for the 20th time in the Kaleva Games and for the 16th time in the final, which starts at 18:30.

Finland’s top three jumpers are missing from the Kaleva Games. Mikko Paavola and Tuomo Holttinen are saving their legs for the European Championships and Juho Alasaari competes in the Junior World Championships in Colombia.

“When I was young, it was a tough effort to get to the prestigious adult competitions. That was the main aim, there was nothing else in mind. I only played sports for a few years then,” says Westö, who jumped his record of 550 centimeters in Uusikaarlepyy in the summer of 2008.

In the end, he only made it to the junior leagues. Coaching started to interest him already in his teenage years, and he is still on that path.

“It wasn’t until I was thirty that I started running a coaching group,” says Westö.

He was involved in the recent World Championships in Athletics as the men’s pole vault coach. He is also Paavola’s personal trainer.

In the Kaleva games, the Vaasa team competes against those coached by Westö Albin Lundberg and Jere Keskinen.

Lundberg was born in the same year that Westö competed in Joensuu in 2002.

Wholly Westö has by no means been without the success of adult competitions. In July, he won the 40-year-old world championship in Tampere with a score of 480 cents.

“There were about ten participants. I had by far the best result of the season in the series. The next one had 382 cents in the statistics. I jump because it’s fun. Of course, I always dream that I could get even higher. Not five and a half meters anymore, though.”

One of Westö’s dreams is to break the 45-year-old world record of 510 centimeters.

“Age records are a motivator and a carrot. You always want to break them. It should take another five years to develop”, Westö laughs.

Time in many athletics physical limits are encountered sooner or later.

You can do well in pole vaulting at the national level and in international veteran series for quite a long time.

“You can also succeed in pole vaulting with skill. On a good day, you can jump five meters. Speed ​​is enough for that. There is a bigger difference between a good day and a bad day than before.”

Japanese hill jumper Noriaki Kasai competed well into his forties and said he can now train every other day. How about Westö?

“I don’t train that often. Sometimes more and sometimes less. In group training, there is always some kind of flexibility training, not necessarily jumps.”

Westö has a jumping place in his backyard, where the offspring are already tuning their own jumps.

“Well, they’re still young, one and four years old, but they’re having fun.”

Pole vaulter Mikael Westö is related to a writer To Kjell Westö. Pole vaulting has not yet been covered in Westö’s books, but pole vaulting has.

The men’s pole vault final starts at 6:30 p.m.