Finns what has happend...

Probably got lazy and convinced themselves that they couldn't be any good. Seems like there's a lot of that going around.

I think the russian invation killed off there upcoming tallent if i rember right.

so much for sisu

Blood doping was made illegal. After that, the Finns kind of disappeared.

I didn't realize the Russians invaded after '76...

decline in greatness wrote:

They used to be so dominant what happend

Lydiard died!!

No leadership, as in, "Hey, President Mobutu is running, maybe I run too and I become strong like Mobutu."

Finland used to have many great distance runners back in the early teen's and '20 like Hannes Kohlemanian, Paavo Nurmi, Ville Rittola.

In the 1930 they also had a number of good runners.

Lauri Lenitenen won the 5000m in the 1932 Olympics, and 1936 with Gunnar Höckert. In the '36 Olympics the Finns went 1-2-3 in the 10,000 meter as well with Volmari Iso-Hollo, Ilmari Salminen and Arvo Askola.

A Finn by the name of Taisto Maki also broke the 30 minute barrier in the 10,000 shortly after the '36 Olympics However it was Ville Heino who held the 10,000m world record at the beginning of WWII.

The two Soviet invasions of Finland during WWII took a devastating toll on the Finn's. The soviets wanted the territory soley as a buffer zone incase the Nazi's invaded from the North (ofcourse this did not happen.)

During the war, all of Finland turned to national defence. Viljo Heino was injured during the War and Olympic Champion Gunnar Höckert was killed in action in the closing days of the Winter War (the first Soveit invasion.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_H

öckert

After the war, those runners left did get back into running (Heino and Maki most notably). Maki came close to his old bests, but by then Emil Zatopek was on the rise. Heino lost to Zatopek in a championchip shortly after the war, and for a short time recaptured his World record in the 10K after Zatopek set his first record.

Some speculate that the post-war situation in Finland from the poor economy (after the Soviets devastaed most of the country and demanded compensation after the war), just did not have the same enviorment that the pre-war Finns had. This and the rising stars form other countries quickly overshadowed the Finns.

It was only for Juhe Väätäinen and Lasse Viren since then who have amounted to any notable championchip victories.

Thanks,

-Dave

BTW if anyone wants to know more most of this information I obtained form reading about "A World History of Long Distance Running" by Roberto Quercetani.

Great info! I wonder what the future holds for them. I am not sure if they have any elite runners right now.

And Pekka Vasala? The Finns were for real in the 70s. But the country has only a little over 5 million people... it's kinda like asking why Minnesota is no longer dominant in international distance running.

Sorta like the war with Persia leading to the demise of the Greeks great distance running tradition. Everything went downhill after Phidippides passed away. Probably the blood doping that did him in.

sisu wrote:

I think the russian invation killed off there upcoming tallent if i rember right.

so much for sisu

OK...I think I have the answer. They all left for Spain and picked up painting.

http://www.juhavaatainen.info/juhavaatainen_uk.htm

Another reason why you should never read a book that claims to be a "World History" of something! Or if you do, you should keep in mind that the author is probably writing complete bollocks at several points:-)

Anyway, before WWII the Finns were great because they trained more seriously and "professionally" than others (mostly other Europeans). They also had much better base training, because they didn't race all year or indoors.

Immediately after WWII the Finns didn't do well because everyone had either been killed, wounded or gone a bit malnourished during the war. (The Swedes weren't though.)

In the 50's some Finns did well and won for instance in Boston, but the rest of the world had caught up and Finnish training was no longer superior. In the 60's the Finns adopted modern training methods with little success.

In the 70's some Finns excelled and lots and lots of Finns did okay, when Lydiard-influenced training bore fruit and there was a great mass of runners - all those babies born after the war, you know - which tends to drive the talents higher.

That wave carried us well into the 80's, but since then it's been downhill with fewer and fewer runners or international quality, smaller and smaller numbers of young runners - and the talents that show promise very often get injured again and again, probably because they've watched too much TV and played computer games instead of "playing Olympic games" and running in the woods, so they never get to build the necessary base to train hard enough to get to the top. And so on, in a downward spiral...

OK, these days we have a decent marathoner or two, a fairly good steeplechaser, too - but that's about it. No one has come even close to breaking the 70's-80's NRs and the Nat'l C'ship winning times are almost pathetic. You get to Top 10 in annual lists with times that wouldn't have gotten you into Top 50. And so on...

IMHO alleged, possible or in two cases documented use of blood doping and steroids doesn't really explain either the height or the width of the 70's-80's top.

PS what I had to ask myself while watching the races in Gothenburg: where are the British long distance runners? The Portuguese? The Italian?

Also worth bearing mind that there has been a change in emphasis. I read recently that the Finns are the fittest nation in the world - generally speaking of course. The govt puts a lot of resources (time, manpower and money)into creating a fit, healthy nation of people rather than concentrating on the development of elite sport.

Bump.

Bump.

Bump.

I was writing most of this off the top of my head from what I remembered. , so sorry I forgot to mention some other notables (like Pekka).

Thank you 36 Minute Man for adding your bit, your analysis post-war seems very logical about Finn running.

(But I sitll think "A World History.." is still a good read for anyone interested in long distance running)

Reindeer population decreased.

There was a pretty good Finnish distance runner in the post-Viren era, but I can't recall his name. I remember seeing him in one of the incarnations of the L.A. Marathon in early 80s. Bjorklund and Maxwell were also in this field.

I can't recall his name.