Finland

The lion’s share of the Finnish quest for Olympic berths in Amsterdam was decided at Helsinki’s Eläintarha grounds during the early days of July. This was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most formidable assembly of track and field talent witnessed in Finland in 1928. The National Championships were relegated to a post-Olympic afterthought, by which time many a chap had already seen his peak form vanish or simply couldn’t be bothered to tilt at the club prize.

On the opening day, a sea of nearly ten thousand craniums filled the stands. The air was thick with the scent of a grand sporting jubilee. A mechanical swarm of motorcars – predominantly Mr. Ford’s ubiquitous "Tin Lizzies," if one believes the national sales ledgers – clogged the approaches to the stadium in a most un-Finnish display of congestion.

A Stern Set of Credentials

The selectors were in no mood for leniency. Any soul harboring ambitions for a five-ringed ticket was required to show his face, even those Finns currently residing in foreign climes. In many a discipline, the surplus of Olympic-grade talent far exceeded the national quota, allowing the committee to wield the axe with aristocratic indifference.

For the runners, the decree was particularly taxing: one had to compete on at least two separate days to prove one's constitution could endure a rapid-fire succession of heats and finals. Only the "Grand Masters," Paavo Nurmi and Ville Ritola, were granted sanctuary from this drudgery. Their previous exploits were deemed sufficient credentials, even had they chosen to spend the weekend in a deckchair. Naturally, the two giants were kept well apart; the "Great Silent One" (Nurmi) sauntered toward the 1500 start without so much as a glance at his peers, while the "Wolf of Peräseinäjoki" (Ritola) prepared for a lonely ten-thousand-meter trot.

“A Spectacle Unmatched in This Realm”

The metric mile produced a gallop of such pedigree that the correspondent for the Uusi Suomi newspaper was moved to ecstasy, claiming its equal had scarcely been seen on this earth. Eino Borg and Harri Larva – the latter having found a most impressive new gear since ’27 – exchanged the lead at a pace that made the world record blush. The opening 400m was dispatched in 60.6, and at the 800m mark, the stopwatches froze at 2:04.4.

With 500 meters remaining, Borg set sail with every sheet of canvas unfurled. Larva galloped in his wake with those deceptive, devouring strides, leaving Nurmi to concede a few metres. As the bell rang, the din from the stands was, in the words of the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, "perfectly ghastly." In a finish that would define Olympic history, Larva pulverized Borg by a mere half-second. His time of 3:52.6 equaled Nurmi’s Finnish record and sat comfortably as the third-fastest effort in human history. Nurmi evidently decided that the 1500 was no longer his cup of tea and promptly struck it from his Amsterdam itinerary.

Meanwhile, Ritola treated the 10000 as a private constitutional, clocking a world-leading 30:49.9. His pacing was so metronomic it would have shamed a Swiss watchmaker – two halves recorded at a precise 15:25 apiece. The true contest, however, concerned the two remaining Olympic berths, which were duly plucked in a final dash by Toivo Loukola and Kalle Matilainen.

Leeches, Nails, and Exuberant Breezes

In the steeplechase, the future champion Loukola triumphed with an unofficial world-record scurry of 9:25.2. Ove Andersen made a brave fist of it early on, but Loukola clung to his heels like a particularly stubborn leech. The press remarked with some wit that Loukola appeared quite bored by the pace, looping over the hurdles with a casual, almost restrained air.

Over the high hurdles, Bengt "Benkku" Sjöstedt – a man destined for future world-record glory – licked the timbers in 14.9. Alas, the record books remained closed to him, as a most exuberant tailwind had practically shoved the lad toward the tape.

A minor tragedy befell the veteran Erik Wilén in the 400m hurdles. He found himself bested by Jukka Matilainen, though the times were nothing to write home about. Wilén’s progress was hampered by a stiff headwind and a foot made tender by the unfortunate decision to step on a nail the previous week. 

The Wind That Ruined the Jumpers

Vilho Tuulos, the triple-jumping aristocrat, was beginning to find his rhythm as the Games loomed. He produced a leap of 15.58 (51-1¼), the finest ever seen, but the bureaucrats denied him a world record due to the brisk winds. Young Erkki Järvinen also availed himself of the draft to land a 15.40 (50-6¼) effort.

The discus was, according to the papers, reduced to a "folk dance" by the weather. Antero Kivi managed to heave the platter 43.95 (144-2), while the Paris medallist Vilho Niittymaa failed to make the cut. The selectors showed no mercy.

The javelin was a similarly muted affair. The berths were scooped up by Paavo Liettu, Vilho Rinne, Albert Lamppu, and a hobbling Eino Penttilä. The world-record holder Penttilä limped off to the dressing room after his second throw, his ankle clearly protesting. The old campaigner Paavo Johansson (Jaale) found himself sixth and without a ticket.

Of Jonni Myyrä, there was no sign. The two-time Olympic champion remained in San Francisco, lurking in the shadows of his creditors. He had begged the American-Finns for passage money, but the financiers demanded he first hurl the spear past the 63-metre mark. The feat went unaccomplished. The Finnish Olympic Committee finally pulled the rug out from under him via telegram a week before the trials began.

Keeping the Powder Dry

Paavo Yrjölä, that sturdy son of the soil, treated the decathlon with the nonchalance of a Sunday stroll, clearly hoarding his explosives for Amsterdam. He nonetheless tallied 7846.56 points, lurking just 150 points shy of his own world record. Akilles Järvinen secured second place with a personal best that signaled his arrival among the world’s elite ten.

As for the marathon, the selection process was a model of bureaucratic clarity – a far cry from the javelin squabbles of later years in Finland. The rules were published, understood, and followed to the letter. The first batch of five secured their passage at Kauhava in June, led by Martti Marttelin. Hannes Kolehmainen, sadly, saw his engine fail and did not finish.

The final, sixth berth was contested at Eläintarha, where the American-Finn Yrjö Korholin-Koski claimed the prize. The defending champion Albin Stenroos was left on the quay, a decision that sparked a minor row, though the selectors remained unmoved.

The Radio Makes a Nuisance of Itself

The Uusi Suomi newspaper managed a clever bit of media wizardry by stationing a reporter in the stands who relayed the news via radiotelephony to the office. The printing presses sang, and by the time the spectators drifted back to the city, they could purchase a "stop press" edition containing the very results they had just witnessed.

On the official wireless, Tahko Pihkala provided a fifteen-minute digest each evening, though live commentary remained a dream of the future. Already, the sporting federations were trembling at the thought of the wireless causing a gate-money drought. The Finnish Federation demanded – and received – a sum in compensation for the broadcast rights, marking the first time the airwaves were made to pay their way in Finnish track and field.

Nurmi Settles the Score with an Olympic Flourish

Prior to the commencement of the struggle for the national laurels in late May, a persistent cloud of uncertainty had hovered over Paavo Nurmi. The previous season had, after all, concluded in a rather unseemly squabble with the federation’s high-and-mighty. However, the furrows of anxiety upon the collective brow of the public were swiftly smoothed over. Some five thousand spectators bore witness as Nurmi pocketed the trophy of the cross country following a display of utterly convincing authority. Toivo Loukola, a fellow future Olympic gold-gatherer, was left languishing more than twenty seconds in arrears. While the Helsingin Toverit chaps secured the team prize, their most formidable asset, Ville Ritola, was conspicuously absent from the sloping contours of the Lahti landscape.

The Art of Ducking

The primary assembly of the 1928 National Championships took place at Helsinki’s Eläintarha grounds in late August, with the leftovers contested a week later at the Turku Sports Park –   specifically the 25,000 metres, the steeplechase, and the decathlon. By then, the closing revelries of the Amsterdam Games were already a fortnight in the past.

It appeared, however, that the nation’s premier talents found the proceedings somewhat beneath their notice. Nurmi was busy fortifying his pension fund on the European invitation circuit, while Ritola found himself physically incapable of gallop, courtesy of an ankle mangled in Amsterdam. Though his name graced the entry list, the great multi-medallist thus concluded his career without ever having deigned to appear in a Finnish Championship.

In a manner strikingly reminiscent of the modern era, the Olympic medallists seemed loath to cross paths. While Eino Purje, the bronze-bearer of the five rings, scuttled through the 1500, Harri Larva, victorious over that very distance in Amsterdam, elected to apply himself to the two-lap. He duly sizzled to a new national record of 1:53.7. Curiously, Larva thus secured Olympic gold in the metric mile but never managed to lay claim to a single domestic title over the same distance.

Larva spent the opening lap loitering at a relaxed 56-second clip. The rest of the pack only fell away during the second circuit, at which point the fresh Olympic champion decided to take his leave, tearing a twenty-metre chasm between himself and the main body of runners.

The undisputed protagonist of the meet was Toivo Loukola, the wiry and resilient steeplechase champion. He plundered the silverware in the 5000, the 10000 metres, and, naturally, his "bread-and-butter" barrier race. His times were hardly the sort to make one spill one's tea; the man was running purely for the win.

Critics today often lament the dearth of entrants for the 10000 at the Finnish Championships. It seems we are treading old ground: in the championships of 1928, the officials wrestled with the selfsame predicament, as a mere three souls bothered to present themselves at the starting line.

Järvinen Pips Yrjölä at the Post

The pentathlon staged a duel of truly global proportions, featuring the two titans who had recently shared the top steps of the Amsterdam decathlon podium. On this occasion, the silver medallist Akilles Järvinen managed to flatten the reigning Olympic champion, Paavo Yrjölä, by the agonizingly thin margin of two points—the final tallies being sorted, as was the custom, by the accumulation of place-figures.

Aside from his longer exploits, Yrjölä claimed the high jump title, a contest where Urho Kekkonen snatched his third and final bronze medal. Notably, Kekkonen had been absent during the Olympic trials in early July.

Over the 100m, the leading trio lunged across the chalk in a frantic abreast finish at 11.2. It required the discerning eye of the photographic plate to confirm that Kalervo Pitkänen had bested the painter Erkki Koponen and Olympian  Risto Mattila by the proverbial whisker.

Taipale’s Discus Record Blown to Atoms

The most resounding feat of the meet was perhaps delivered by the Olympic silver-bearer Antero Kivi, who sent the platter sailing to a new national record of 47.45 (155-8). In doing so, he unceremoniously evicted the twelve-year-old official record held by Olympic champion Armas Taipale, who had decamped to America in 1924.

A correspondent for a Finnish sports journal provided a succinct, if somewhat dry, account of the record-breaking heave:

"With a faint smirk, Kivi stepped into the ring. The arm rose. The arm fell. A whirl. And 'that final tug' made short work of Taipale’s ghost."

Kivi’s flight also tickled the poetic fancy of "Uppercut" – the author Yrjö Halme – who scribbled a ditty from the press box while the iron was hot:

"Fly, Kivi, fly high / Cast a record to the sky / Kivi. Kivi. Kivi."

In the pole vault, Väinö Salo hoisted his frame over a new Finnish height of 3.81 (12-6). The achievement was modest in the grand scheme of things, reflecting the rather pedestrian standard of the discipline in 1920s Finland. Meanwhile, Ville Pörhölä, the Olympic shot-put king in 1920, had begun to take his new flirtation with the hammer quite seriously. The "Beast of the Far North" swung the iron ball with enough vigor to secure his first national bronze in that noble art.

Marttelin’s World Best

A week after the main festivities, the "after-party" moved to Turku, where another world record found its way into Finnish hands, albeit in an event seldom troubled by the international championships. Martti Marttelin, the Olympic bronze marathoner, trotted to the 25,000-metre title, ringing the bell on a new world best of 1:24:35.4. The tireless "kilometre-swallower" from Nummi—who would later fall in the Winter War—surged to the front around the nine-kilometre mark and vanished into the distance four kilometres later.

In the decathlon, Paavo Yrjölä restored the natural order by thrashing Akilles Järvinen, who had so rudely beaten him in the pentathlon just days prior. While the scores failed to scale the dizzying heights of their Amsterdam encounter, the "Sturdy Husbandman" from Hämeenkyrö still managed to tear a chasm of over 300 points between himself and his closest rival.

For the third consecutive year, the Kaleva Bowl was carted back to the offices of Tampereen Pyrintö, for winning the club prize.