Work | “I got to live the lessons that I can use to help others” – This is janitor Mika Poutala

Caretaker, maintenance manager, property manager.

With a former speed skater Mika Poutala there are many tasks at the capital region’s sports academy in Urhea.

Poutala volunteered to renovate and maintain places in Urhea, which is currently looking for a maintenance manager.

“I’m not going to apply for that position. I’m an entrepreneur through and through,” says 39-year-old Poutala to HS, as he circulates his guests through Urhea’s mazes, corridors and staircases.

“There are a surprising number of steps per day when you have to go here and there.”

Ten the Olympic training center, which had been in preparation for a year, was opened on August 1, 2021. Poutala has enough work to do in the new building before the position of maintenance manager can be filled.

Many training facilities require constant maintenance. Urhea is not just a center for athletes’ everyday training, but also where they study and live.

In actual sports training, the campus offers a setting for basketball, rhythmic gymnastics, balance gymnastics, athletics, wrestling and judo.

“Mika is a really fast worker,” says the men’s gymnastics coach Timo Holopainen.

He had asked Poutala to fix the fixing screw on the gymnastics rack. The next day, Holopainen had come to show which screw he meant, but Poutala had already fixed it.

“My work makes an athlete’s everyday life easier. It’s nice to do it when you can see athletes at the same time. During my own career, I suffered from circumstances, and now I want to help others,” says Poutala.

Poutala has always been handy. Woodwork was his favorite subject in middle school. He made an electric guitar in lessons, even though he can’t play it.

“The guitar turned out really great, it looks right. That’s how things started. I fix up the house a lot. I have made five kitchens and seven terraces along the way. There is also a terrace project going on in Hanko. There is demand,” says Poutala.

On YouTube, Poutala has run a construction program called Isin Paja, where he shows construction and guides in it.

The brave Poutala first offered to make shelves for the warehouse when the matter came up in the board of the Finnish Olympic Committee, of which he is a member.

“When I came to Urhea, all travel expenses were in order here and I was immediately offered a work contract. I didn’t go for that, even though I’ve been working 40 hours in the last month,” says Poutala.

He made the warehouse shelves for free, but receives compensation for the rest of the work.

“I want to keep this as a hobby, do it from time to time.”

In Urhea, Poutala has a workshop with all the necessary equipment. The working day starts with him collecting repair tools in a pushcart and starts going around the hall.

He also has a large arsenal of tools at home.

“It would be a dream to have my own workshop at home. Now the tools are in the carport. I don’t know about winter yet.”

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“I got to live the lessons that I can use to help others.”

Speed ​​skating Poutala retired after the 2018 Olympic Games. In his fourth Olympic skating, he finished fourth in the 500 meters. The bronze medal was only three hundredths away.

An Olympic medal was already close in Vancouver 2010, when he was fifth in the 500 meters. He still holds the 500m SE time of 34.17, which he skated in Salt Lake City in December 2017.

“When I look back on my career, I see it as a super great experience. I got much more than I expected. Even though I didn’t win big competitions, I got lessons in life that I can use to help others”, says Poutala.

“I learned to appreciate sports only after I quit. After I finished, I noticed how the athletes manage to train so disciplinedly. I had lived the same way for a long time, and when I got out of it, I realized that it is possible to live much easier.”

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“I was privileged in sports.”

Sports career since then, Poutala’s main job has been speaking, lecturing and mentoring. Before the corona pandemic, he traveled around Finland with speaking gigs two or three times a week.

“During the corona, gigs decreased radically. Corona is still affecting. Companies still don’t dare to organize events properly.”

At speaking gigs, Poutala wants to help people see their own possibilities.

“I’ll tell you what choices I made in my career. The speech goes a lot on the emotional level. I open up about my disappointments, goal setting, well-being and life values. Many have said that it is not the speech of a basic celebrity,” says Poutala.

“I was privileged in sports. You don’t realize that in the moment when you get to live your dream and still earn a living with it.”

Poutala and Pekka Koskela the two of them maintained Finland’s speed skating reputation for almost 20 years. Koskela also stopped in 2018.

“For ten years Peka and I went side by side. One of us was always in the fight for a medal.”

When will the next Poutala or Koskela come?

“It’s a question mark. You can’t tell about the youngsters yet, even if they skated faster times than me or Pekka at their age. A good innovation is that the national team has rented apartments from Inzell for the entire season. The skaters are in great shape.”

Inzell’s speed skating rink is one of the best training places in Germany and Europe.

Poutala practiced and lived abroad a lot during his career. For example, he moved to Canada for a long time to be able to train in good conditions.

Traveling and living abroad are one of the reasons why Poutala is thinking carefully about his interest in sports management, which could be an option in the future.

“Sports management is interesting, but the brakes are on. I want to be with my family in Finland. That’s why I don’t actively pursue big positions. As a board member of the Olympic Committee, I have learned to appreciate the work of the ‘topcoat men’. There is no confrontation between the athletes and the bosses.”

In Espoo’s municipal council, Poutala (kd) feels that he has made his voice heard in the sports and inspection committees.

“It has been interesting to see how the city and the sports side work. I claim that, as a former athlete, I am listened to and I can bring an athlete’s thinking along,” says Poutala and goes to tighten screws in Urhea’s sports facilities.

Read more: At the end came a thank you

Read more: Speed ​​skater Mika Poutala tells more about her decision to quit in an interview with HS – “I didn’t think about it when I was overwhelmed with emotion”

Read more: Mika Poutala’s Olympic dream crumbled to three hundredths of a second: “Then I looked at the scoreboard, that’s what I never wanted to see”