Dead | Harri Syväsalmi was a world-respected cosmopolitan, but impatient at home

Paris

Fate the hand was cruel when a well-known sports influencer Harri Syväsalmi died, exhausted by cancer treatments, just during the Olympic Games in Paris on Monday, August 5.

Syväsalmi enthusiastically followed sports wherever he moved and whenever it was possible. Syväsalmi, born in Pori in 1954, was 71 years old when he died.

A close and long-time friend of Syväsalmi Risto Nieminen received a call from Syväsalmi’s spouse on Friday From Tiina Perhothat now would be the last chance to come and see Harri at the hospice.

“I was happy that I still had time to meet. Harri was completely sharp until the end. We were reminiscing about the good old days. He was at ease with the world and completely in balance,” says Nieminen.

When Syväsalmi heard about his cancer diagnosis a few years ago, he started tough treatments. When Syväsalmi asked his doctor how long he had to live, the doctor said that “yes, you will die, but not from cancer”.

When the cancer was discovered, it had already spread. As a mentally strong person, Syväsalmi overcame cancer, but her body could not withstand drastic treatments.

“When it was time to leave, Harri said he needed to rest a bit. Even in that situation, he was really considerate and got us out of that situation,” Nieminen aptly describes Syväsalmi’s character.

Syväsalmi Nieminen got to know the Student Sports Association in action 50 years ago in 1974.

“We weren’t in exactly the same places, but we met in different positions, such as at the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 1983,” recalls Nieminen, the former CEO of Veikkaus and chairman of the Olympic Committee.

At the World Championships, Syväsalmi was the leader of the athletes’ competition village. After that, he founded a travel agency specializing in sports trips, served as youth director of Vantaa, until he moved to the director of sports and physical activity at the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Syväsalmi left the ministry when he participated as an official in the Finnish Football Association’s trip to the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

Syväsalmi was fined after being guilty of endangering trust and impartiality as an official of the Ministry of Education. The case weighed on Syväsalmi’s mind for a long time.

“I can still hear about this. The punishment seemed unreasonable, when the correct one would have been a bribery offense. The football association did not receive any benefit, but my actions met the hallmarks of a bribery offense. I was thoughtless,” Syväsalmi admitted to HS in the interview in January 2019.

However, Syväsalmi did not lose his position.

In the year 1999 Syväsalmi was founding the World Anti-Doping Agency, Wada, of which he was the first secretary general from 2000 to 2003.

In Wada, Syväsalmi was a Canadian Dick Pound credit man. Pound was elected WADA’s first president in 1999.

In the beginning, Wada’s office was in Lausanne, from where it moved to Pound’s hometown, Montreal.

Syväsalmi and Pound got on well. In the early stages of Wada, the office needed money, which Syväsalmi asked Pound, who worked as a coffin guard.

Due to the time difference, Syväsalmi called from the dinner table in Lausanne to Montreal and asked Wada for more money:

“How much is needed?” Pound asked.

“Well, one million dollars to begin with,” Syväsalmi replied.

A different kind Syväsalmi was honored at the World Ski Championships in Lahti in 2001, when Wada organized surprise doping tests for the Finnish national skiing team. Syväsalmi will fail the self-tests.

“When the weird Finnish names started coming, I started crying,” Syväsalmi said in January 2019.

Nieminen reminds that Syväsalmi did not make a test decision in Lahti, as is often erroneously claimed.

“Harri only aimed for the result that the tricks of the gray area are caught quickly. Doping is much more difficult today than it was 20 years ago. These are pretty tough systems now. Harri has practically started it. He got a lot of time in this field,” says Nieminen.

in Montreal Wada’s operations and office grew. As a person with fast movements, Syväsalmi left Wada behind and moved to Brussels as a lobbyist.

He served as the chairman of the working group of the convention against the manipulation of match results in the Council of Europe.

From Brussels, Syväsalmi returned to the Ministry of Education as a director, where he still held his position.

In 2016, he was elected secretary general of Suek, the ethical center for Finnish sports, from which he retired at the end of 2018.

Even in retirement Syväsalmi did not remain idle. In the fall of 2019, Syväsalmi started as the chairman of Hurrikaani-Loimaa, which plays in the Volleyball Championship. He also served as vice president of the Volleyball Association.

In the hurricane stand, Syväsalmi had a regular seat in the front row. His wife Tiina attracted him to Loimaa.

Risto Nieminen says that Syväsalmi was a cosmopolitan who was in the world like a fish in water.

“Harri was really respected internationally. In the world, he was extremely calm and took everyone into account. He calmed the meetings with humor, was clear and really liked. At home, he was quite impatient and fierce, but many people are forever grateful to Harri,” says Nieminen.

At the sports gala in January, Syväsalmi was awarded the Taustavoima award. In his acceptance speech, he stated that there is often an either-or situation in exercise and sports.

“It’s either or, there is no elite sport without exercise and vice versa, Syväsalmi said.

“Harri was a person, but there were a lot of people who didn’t like him. A lush person who dared and knew how to be,” says Nieminen.

Syväsalmi was known as family-oriented. He had five children and grandchildren.

“Harri had a big family around him, which spread through Tiina to Perho’s family. Harri enjoyed being in a big group and took responsibility for it,” says Nieminen.