THE PIHTIPUDAS PRODUCTION LINE copyright - C. J. Turner & IAAF 2000. Finland, a country of only five million people has a particularly fine pedigree as an athletics nation. Track & field athletics is the summer sport and javelin is the national event. In particular, Finland’s men can boast a remarkable honours list - seven Olympic, three world and four European gold medals and a staggering 18 world records during the last century. There is tremendous depth too! In each of the last five years Finnish men have supplied just under a fifth of the world’s top 100 throwers! Finnish women have been slow to emulate their male colleagues success but in the last twenty years have been fast improving capturing one Olympic, one World and one European gold and two world records. An overriding passion for javelin throwing is always given as the main reason for the Finns’ success. However, if this is the sole reason why don’t the Finns also still produce their fair share of the world’s best distance runners as they did in the 1920’s, 30’s and 70’s. The Finns’ appreciation of running has always been as strong as their love of spear throwing. So maybe in our search for an answer we should instead be directed by Matti Jarvinen - “Mr Javelin” - the greatest of all Finnish champions. In the early 1970’s, Jarvinen who was 1932 Olympic gold medallist, double European champion and ten times world record breaker, paid a visit to the Annual Javelin Carnival meet in the small central Finnish town of Pihtipudas - “You are doing a great job! We can be certain that the javelin has a future in Finland!” commented a smiling Jarvinen to the meeting organisers. On the surface Pihtipudas doesn’t seem to possess the credentials of a sporting phenomena. For 99% of the year it is a quiet “one road town”, but arrive during one week of July each year and you will discover the town’s real soul - JAVELIN or Keihas in Finnish! It isn’t an exaggeration to say that everyone involved in the Javelin Carnival festival has either thrown or coached. I was driven to Pihtipudas by ex Finnish head coach Esa Utriainen (pb old spear 90.94m) and on arrival, was greeted by meeting director and present head coach Kari Ihalainen (pb old spear 87.04m). Next on venturing into the dinner hall, I was met by Jyrki Blom (4th at 1986 European Champs) who has been the “head master” of the Carnival’s javelin school for the last three years. Yes, Pihtipudas lives and breathes javelin. The Carnival which this year was celebrating it’s 30th Anniversary, is a javelin only athletics meeting. It was created by javelin throwers for javelin throwers. The aim was to fill the annual lull in competition suffered by throwers during the weekend of the National Club Relay Championships, a fixture kept sacrosanct by the Finnish Federation. Back in 1971, the Finnish Federation after much discussion agreed that the carnival could take place but in order that it would not conflict with the relay championships no financial assistance was offered to the event. Even today the event has remained one organised by volunteers with its modest £20,000 budget mainly being raised through the sale of the domestic television rights. Even Finland’s top senior throwers compete for no fee at the meeting. Everyone is here for just one reason, a love of javelin throwing. The Javelin School was established in 1976 with the aim of spreading knowledge about the event to coaches and athletes attending from throughout Finland and it is the heart of the carnival. It’s strength is that it offers a social as well as an educational experience for all who attend. The age of the 150 pupils each year range between 9 - 22 years and include a group of disabled athletes. Everyone sleeps on the campus of what outside Carnival week is Pihtipudas’ secondary school. The communal nature of the school allows all of Finland’s best throwers to meet each other and exchange ideas and experiences in a relaxed setting. The coaches stay separately to the athletes in a large log cabin apartment building next to an idyllic lake just about a mile away from the school, and here too there is a natural flow of ideas and opinions about the latest training techniques. In this way the vast accumulated javelin knowledge of the Finns is transferred from one coach to another, from one generation to the next. Throughout the week there are plenty of parties and dances and of course Finnish sauna, swimming and gatherings around lake side fires. Enjoyment is the key to the whole event and in July when the sun really never sets this far north you could not get a more relaxed atmosphere. During the day the javelin pupils are split into age groups and each group is allotted three coaches to help supervise their training. Even a number of parents who act as volunteers are encouraged to increase their knowledge. They are split into their own training group and given instruction on to how to supervise the training or prepare the diet for their aspiring children. All are encouraged to learn about the science of javelin throwing with biochemical analysis of throwing technique and pre-meet preparation. To the science is added a crucial motivational element as each year a wide range of top throwers past and present return to the carnival to act as coaches. Jorma Kinnunen, world recordholder in 1969, to whom a statute stands alongside the athletics track in Pihtipudas, is the rock upon which the coaching structure of the carnival is based. As well as guiding his son Kimmo to the 1991 World title, Jorma Kinnunen’s coaching reputation attracts many former international stars to the Carnival each year. Olympic champions and world record breakers such as Janis Lusis (LAT), Tom Petranoff (USA), Uwe Hohn (GDR) and Miklos Nemeth (HUN) are regular visitors and all come to coach at the school. Leo Pusa, one of the co-founders of the Carnival but who is better known as coach to two Finnish Olympic javelin champions, Tapio Korjus (1988) and reigning women’s champion Heli Rantanen (1996), is another inspirational force behind the meet. Korjus, who is now director of the Kuortane National Sports Institute has a formidable coaching reputation himself. Harri Haatainen the current holder of the world junior record and Mikaela Ingberg the bronze medallist from the 1995 World and 1998 European championships, are both guided by him. Pihtipudas is a production line of champions. Just as Pusa moulded Korjus, a pupil of the school in the early 1980’s into an Olympic champion, so Korjus has passed the baton on to Haatainen and Ingberg who are more recent graduates of the system. Of Pusa’s other famous charges, this year Heli Rantanen was paying her 14th visit to the meeting and the women’s winner Taina Uppa, the former World & European Junior champion set a new Finnish record! All continue to return to the festival and so the carnival’s cycle of success continues. Mikaela Ingberg summed up the pivotal role that the Carnival played in her own development - “The greatest impetus came when I was 14 years old and Tapio Korjus was the coach of my group at the javelin school. I remember so well when Tapio won the Olympic title later on in that year thinking with great excitement - "oh my god he was our coach at the javelin school!" The latest champion who has sprung from the conveyor belt is of course Aki Parviainen the current men’s World Champion - “All the kids attending the carnival, get to see the javelin stars compete. They are given instruction by their heroes and the atmosphere is wonderful. I first visited the carnival when I was 15 years old and it is an important part of any young Finnish throwers development”. Jyrki Blom, the school’s head master sees the carnival’s success as fundamental to the present healthy state of Finnish throwing - “All the top Finnish throwers of the last twenty years have been students. I’m sure that many of the 150 kids who are here this year will also be future champions. We offer a combination of motivation and instruction. All who attend see it is possible for a Finn to be the world’s best and so they are encouraged to return each year to learn more and maybe become a champion too!” In the wake of the javelin carnival’s success every athletic event in Finland has now established their own carnival meeting. The first to copy the formula was the Shot Carnival in Hameenkyro which was established in 1973 and in this Olympic year alone Finland has already produced seven men who have thrown over 20 metres! Maybe then the athletics world should take note, as very soon the “Pihtipudas production line” could have successful branches throughout the whole of Finnish track & field! copyright - C. J. Turner 2000.