Finland v France

The major meets of the 1923 athletics season came to an end in Finland on 22-23 September with the second international match, which was the first held on Finland's soil. The French, who had previously been defeated by Finland in the meeting in Paris the previous autumn, faced off on the Eläintarha field in Helsinki. 

The weather was perfect on the first day. On the second, the athletes had to dodge puddles of water. The audience was also packed: 6,000-8,000 people. The tickets sold out.

The match also interested the media. The newspapers prepared for the competition by eagerly announcing guessing competitions, in which the winners and results had to be predicted.

The guests travelled to the exotic Nordic country with a short-handed team. In some events, not a single Gallic man could be included. Long-distance runner Lucien Duquesne also missed the boat and apparently never made it to Helsinki. The Finnish victory was therefore clear, and the point difference is not worth paying attention to.

Nurmi ran only for victory

Finland started the match with almost its first-choice team. Even Paavo Nurmi interrupted his European tour and came to the meet from Copenhagen, even though he was otherwise a man of his own way. Nurmi immediately dispelled the illusions of his opponents in the 1,500 meters by running first 400 metres in under a minute. The audience roared. Then the pace was slightly slowed down, and the final result was under four minutes by one tenth of a second. The race was apparently Nurmi's first appearance at Eläintarha.

Double Olympian André Mourlon outpaced the fastest man in Finland, Lauri Härö, in the 200 metres. After the race, the band on the field played "La Marseillaise." Morally, Mourlon should have won also the 100 metres. After seven false starts, Reijo Halme took a rolling start and thus managed to beat Mourlon, who put up a tough fight in the end.

Torpo 14.56m - shot put world rankings shaken up

Hannes Torpo threw the shot for his record of 14.56m (47-9¼), which in 1923 landed him in third place in the world rankings. 

Olympic champion Elmer Niklander made a comeback to the discus ring as the Paris Olympics approached and threw 44.24m (145-1), which qualified him for seventh place in the world rankings. Another veteran, Olympic champion Armas Taipale, was also enthusiastic about throwing and threw the cake over 46 metres.

Martti Jukola, the future pioneer of radio sports commentary, also made it into the top ten in the world rankings by smashing the best Frenchman on the final stretch of the long hurdles and finishing second (56.3). Erik Wilén won (55.4). 

On the high hurdles, the visitors' Henri Bernard scored 15.3, which qualified for the top ten in the European rankings in 1923. Wilén was almost half a second behind.

On the other hand, Wilén toiled on the 400 metres flat in 49.4 and almost reached the 49.0 NR he weighed in the Gothenburg meet a couple of months earlier.

The next Finland v. France international match would take place in Paris in the autumn of 1929.