some Finnish bloke has just won the 3k chase.
some Finnish bloke has just won the 3k chase.
When young kids see enormously fraudulent times like 26:18 ten ks or 3:43 miles, common sense would tell a kid that on one except a low life cheater can run those times as a clean runner....so the sport is hurt because people don't want to pursue a dirty activity....
When the great Jim Ryun (was there ever a more talented runner?) ran 3:55 as a high schooler he realized that he was only two seconds from the world record. He had a shot!
Now when an American kid like Webb runs 3:54 he realizes he is an astounding 11 seconds from The Fraudulent One High Sham El G. at 3:43. Webb has to make a decision, does he cheat like him, or train to run 3:49 hoping that WADA will eliminate the cheaters...
You can't blame kids and parents for pursuing soccer or baseball...at least baseball almost admits they have bums in their midst (McGwire, Sosa, Bonds). Track continues to live with the lies of Geb, Bekele, and El G.
Marti Vainio medaled in Helsinki in the 5000.
I beleive a Finn got Bronze in Moscow in 1980 in the 10,000. Those are the last big names I recall and this was 1980-84.
(Track continues to live with the lies of Geb, Bekele, and El G.[/quote])
And almost as bad, are the companies (Nike) and fans, a few on letsrun.com, who continue to defend and support them...they knowingly, or unknowingly, have done tremendous damage to a once great sport. Druggies, whether it is cocanie, heroin, or epo, are very selfish people.
JUka Keskisalo (FIN) just won the 3000sc at the EC
Those later 20th century Finns, such as Viren, Vasala, Vaino, etc. were heavily into blood doping. My master tried to tell them to not do it, leave things on a level playing field, however, I died. Now I, the ghost of Paavo's feces is left to tell the story...
100 years ago, there was a 9-year old boy who lived in the town of Turku. That boy was named Paavo Nurmi. What I would do to be able to be him 100 years ago and live the dream he lived.
Awesome run! Way to go Finland!
Didn't a Finn win the marathon at the last Euro champs?
steepler wrote:
Awesome run! Way to go Finland!
Didn't a Finn win the marathon at the last Euro champs?
Yes, Janne Holmén won it in '02. Huge underdog, something like 200:1 odds.
Martii Vainio also won a Euro Championship as well as a few medals at Euros and Worlds (to add another 70s-80s Flying Finn), but he was also seriously doping.
I think that those victories at EC proves that finland´s distance runniing isn´t dead. And for those who wroted about blood doping by our runners, here´s my comment; Eat your words and go out to do some jogging.
Here in finland most people still loves distance running.
Thank you Jukka Keskisalo. P.S. I was running with him 1993 when we were 12y old, he won that 800meter race with good kick, time 2.26. I ran 2.34...
what a joke, lad. so vaino was framed then? and how about your entire cross country ski team?
eurotruth wrote:
what a joke, lad. so vaino was framed then? and how about your entire cross country ski team?
That was Vainio, lad, and he did not blood doped. He used drugs. Running and skiing are different sports. But our skiers too (not ENTIRE cross country ski team), they weren´t blood doped. Of course those cheaters was still dirty bastards.
haha! are you joking? your skiers are not doped? they were framed as well? vaino, vattinen, and the other 10k gent from LA- they were not doped? they were dirty and you know it. it is sad. i love scandinavia as much as you, but we have to draw the line at some point. even though i am a swede, i cheer for the finns, norwegians, and even danes (this is the hardest of all)...
You just don´t get it. I wrote against accuses of BLOOD DOPING, method used to raise haemoglobin. I just want that you understand it. Do you? Like i said, those skiers, Vainio etc. are cheaters and I don´t accept that kind of methods.
Now I enjoy of performances our clean top athletes.
It was sad that yours swedes high jumpers did not achieve
what they wanted but, for me, it wasn´t sad at all. HAHAA!!
"Varifrån kommer ni?" and "eurotruth"), you don't have to be stupid just beacuse you're Swedish! If you don't think when you read and you post before you think, you only end up looking like a complete idiot!
It is one thing to point out that Martti Vainio tested positive for an anabolic steroid in 1984 and six skiers (when the "entire cross country ski team" was tested) for a plasma expander in 2001 and to argue that there wasn't any blood doping or EPO use involved in either case (as "Finn" did) and quite another thing to say that the athletes were framed (as you or you two claim he said).
I'm not going to bore you with it but FWIW it is entirely possible, quite credible and rather probable that this really was so. In any case, you can at best argue that it is more possible, credible and probable that those Finns had also used blood doping.
I'm not quite sure who "Vattinen" might be, but if you're referring to Väätäinen, you might just as well have included Viren, Vasala and Kantanen, because his background and career don't really make him any more or any less suspects than those other medal-winning Finns. OTOH I'd day that you should ask the opinion of Anders Gärderud who after all has some experience of actually training with and competeing against Väätäinen...
FYI Vainio was the only Finnish "10k gent from LA", so I haven't got a clue of whom you had in mind here. BTW if you'd just written "10k gent", I would've told you about Kaarlo Maaninka who later got religion, saw Jesus and was saved, as they say, and confessed that he had used blood doping before Moscow. But i wouldn't have bothered you with any stories about what he answered when he was then asked about what he knew about other Finns...
Anyway, wasn't the steeplechase final great? Musse did a good job, it just wasn't his day, and he was the first to congratulate Jukka, the two have trained together mayne times in Dullstroom. It was also really good to see a Swedish runner in the 1500m and 5000m finals, especially when Henrik Skoog did more than okay!
Let's not forget Susanne Wigene, either! And I even felt a little sorry for Marius Bakken - even though he is one of those insufferable kind of Norwegians...
That Finnish runner in LA Marathon in the 1980's could have been Esa Tikkanen (2nd in Boston behind Shorter), Jukka Toivola (2nd in New York behind Salazar) or Pertti Tiainen, all three raced a lot in the U.S. and did respectable times.
I'd include them in the same generation as the 1970's greats, though. The next generation came with runners like Harri Hänninen and Risto Ulmala, lone stars or wolves who ran in championship finals, but without any major successes.
And this next generation does, after all have a "decent marathoner", Janne Holmén, 7th in Gothenburg, and a "fairly goof steeplechaser", Jukka Keskisalo, 1st!!!
It's "only the Euros", I know - but I don't care, either!
The Finns only care about the most beautiful sport there is...... JAVELIN THROW!!!!! They are mad about it!! It is as popular as football/basketball/baseball in the USA!!! And well deserved...
At BolderBOULDER this year, Joe Vigil said something I would totally agree with; he said that, for any training group, it would have to be "coach-driven, athlete-centered". It is exactly how Japanese corperate teams would operate (and I can get into that much deeper but that's a whole different story).
Arthur Lydiard of New Zealand set up the foundation for Finn's second golden era of the 70s. He served as their national coach in the late 60s, influenced coaches of Viren, Vasala and Kantanen. On his last US tour, he mentioned how Finns broke away from what he has developed, which is the infra-structure where things would be operated based on "coach-driven, athlete-centered". One of Arthur's favorite stories was how, in 1972 Olympics, Finns had the same number of officials as Danes and Swedes but the structure was such that Finns had something like 5 coaches and one manager whereas Danes and Swedes had 5 managers and one coach. Coaches are the ones who produce champions. When things get shifted and become "officials-centered", then the direction would be contorted. Same thing; the competitons should be organized around the athletes, not sponsors or spectators however important they may be.
One of the stories Arthur kept telling us was how Finnish Federation in the recent years brought a coach from Kenya simply because "Kenyans are dominating the world distance running." That is a very superficial way of thinking--more or less a "tampering" than "developing potential based on sound fundamentals." I don't know exactly how things are going in Finland; whether they really brough a Kenyan coach or what; but at least the story really makes sense to me. It's like Americans too busy paying millions to superstar athletes and ignored who developed those superstar athletes. That, to me, should be a lesson to be learnt.
It's great to hear some of those old-timers names. I remember Toivola winning Montreal Pre Olympic marathon ahead of a Japanese, Mizukami. However, I don't remember him finishing behind Salazar at NY. Also, I think you're thinking perhaps about Rodgers at Boston??? Frank Shorter never won Boston--that jinks that "no Olympic champion wins Boston" till Bordin (and Benoit) broke it. I remember this young lady from Finland who won the European Championships 3000m in the late 70s. Can't remember her name but that was when Viren finished 3rd in 5000 behond Foster. I saw a picture of Viren giving a big hug to her.
36 minute man:
Are you actually from Finland? I'm curious to know if young runners in Finland, as they were when Lydiard first arrived in Finland, don't go for a long runs in winter? Or do they? Someone mentioned about MN, I had a chat with Steve Plasencia who is a two-time Olympian that MN's long harsh winter probably helped develop long distance runners because they really can't do too much intense training during the winter; instead, they just have to get out and plod along--great way to build base.
"Anyway, wasn't the steeplechase final great? Musse did a good job, it just wasn't his day, and he was the first to congratulate Jukka, the two have trained together mayne times in Dullstroom. It was also really good to see a Swedish runner in the 1500m and 5000m finals, especially when Henrik Skoog did more than okay!"
oof, you have me completely confused! it's no problem- i am all for cheering for all of scandinavia in the euros. brilliant run by the finn in the steeple- skal! as for the drugs, we shall just let it go. it does no one good to talk about this anymore...luckatill...
anders
I lived in central Finland for 5 years. Forget running in the winter, bloody difficult, just ski all day.
Finland became a very rich country in the 80's and like most rich folk they all got lazy. The collapse of the economy due to the end of the USSR possibly contributed to the recent upsurge in running success.
Adi