Everybody's a winner in Helsinki Chris Turner for IAAF 14 June 2001 - ASICS HELSINKI GRAND PRIX Despite strong wind, driving rain and cold temperatures in Helsinki’s Olympic stadium tonight the Asics Helsinki Grand Prix still produced an array of good performances in front of a drenched crowd of about 10,000 spectators who showed as much resilience as the athletes by sitting for three hours in torrential rain. Given the weather conditions the greatest applause should go to Britain’s world indoor 200 metres silver medallist Christian Malcolm who twice braved the cold and the wet to win an impressive sprint double with times of 10.17 and 20.40 seconds for 100m and 200m. “I have done a little more speed endurance and weights work this last winter and I am certain that is the key to my performance tonight” said Malcolm. He continued “ I didn’t expect to run this fast so early in the season or in such bad weather. This double win tonight proves once more how right my coach has been to hold me back and not let me do too much too soon”. The central spectacle of the evening - as this is Finland - was of course the men’s javelin with three time Olympic champion Jan Zelezny throwing 86.84 metres in the second round to take the win over current season world leader Kostas Gatsioudis of Greece (2nd, 84.14m) and Finland’s World champion Aki Parviainen (3rd 81.66m). It was slightly sweet revenge for Zelezny over the Finn as Parviainen had beaten him in similarly wet and windy conditions in the Golden Javelin in Vantaa on May 20th. All three men were in agreement that in the conditions the finishing positions and distances counted for very little. Zelezny was pleasantly surprised that he had thrown so far. “I usually throw so badly in Helsinki and this must be one of my best distances ever in this stadium. I didn’t have any real problems with grip on the runway as I was wearing extra long spikes tonight” commented the world record holder. Zelezny was the only one of the five Sydney Olympic champions on show here in Helsinki to defeat the rain which showed no respect to athletic reputations even that of Olympic gold medallists. Olympic women’s hammer champion Kamila Skolimowska of Poland was the first of the Sydney winners to compete tonight and suffered defeat at the hands of Russia’s Olga Kuzenkova the athlete who finished with the silver behind her at the Olympics. On a wet circle distances were only a little down and the Russian’s winning 69.19 metres was a very impressive result. The Olympic champion threw 66.97 metres for second place ahead of Olga Tsander of Belarus in third with 66.56 metres. Finland’s Olympic shot champion Arsi Harju was the next champion to suffer and could only finish 5th with 19.73 metres behind fellow Finns Ville Tiisanoja 19.88m and Conny Karlsson 20.24m and Ukraine’s Juri Belonog. However, all these athletes had also to give best to Spain’s Manual Martinez who set up a fine victory with 20.33 metres in the second of four rounds. Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards was yet another victim of the appalling weather and in warm up began to suffer cramps to his right hand side and could ‘only’ manage 16.99 metres for second behind Christian Ohlsson of Sweden who won with the first 17 metre jump of his career - 17.08m. “I felt a cramp in my right side during warm up and it became so painful to run that I could not fully concentrate on jumping. At 35 years of age this sort of weather is the last thing you need! It is such a shame for a wonderful meeting as this to be ruined by the rain tonight. Everybody was here and it should have been an excellent competition but the conditions stopped it all. If you didn’t put in a good jump in the first round it was never going to happen as once your shoes were wet jumping was nearly impossible” commented Edwards. In the penultimate event of the evening the men’s 3,000 metres, Million Wolde of Ethiopia the Olympic 5,000 metres champion was the fourth champion to ‘fail’ in the conditions. Yet his third place in 7:46.80 minutes defeated narrowly by his compatriots Kenenisa Bekele (2nd 7:46.71 mins) and Abiyote Abate (1st 7:46.55 mins) was hardly a disappointment. As Million Wolde commented after the race -“what could I do, the wind and rain were hitting me so hard on my chest that it was like someone was punching me!” Wolde next runs in Rome and is hoping for some sunshine and a more helpful start to his racing season! Of the other events tonight. South Africa’s Mbuireni Muladzi who won the 800m at Qatar Grand Prix earlier this season produced a convincing win in 1:45.18 over Olympic seventh placer Globy Dube of Botswana (2nd 1:45.44). The men’s 400 metres win went to South Africa’s Olympic finalist Hendrick Mokganyetsi in a modest 46.03 seconds. Another Sydney Olympic finalist Dudley Dorival was the victor in the men’s 110m hurdles in 13.40 seconds. In the women’s 400 metres Jamaica’s Sandie Richards defeated the weather as much as her fellow competitors to run a very creditable 50.95 seconds for victory. Zhanna Pintusevitsh of the Ukraine won the women’s 100 metres in 11.11 seconds. The women’s javelin was won by Olympic bronze medallist Osleidis Menendez of Cuba with an excellent 66.74 metres and second was 1999 World championships silver medallist Tatjana Shikolenko of Russia with 64.49 metres. The women’s long jump was the province of World Heptathlon champion Eunice Barber tonight as she comfortably beat all the specialist jumpers with a 6.67 metre leap. The men’s high jump suffered more than any event with World Indoor champion Stefan Holm of Sweden beating a world class field with a modest 2.26 metre leap in a contest which like the whole meeting was nearly washed away by the rain. However, the last words tonight should certainly be those of the meeting director Jukka Kunnas who paid tribute to the attitude of both the spectators and athletes -“we respect very much all the athletes and sports fans who did not let the weather bother them tonight, they are all winners” ENDS. Chris Turner 2001.