Tero Pitkämäki

Tero Pitkämäki ( Tero Kristian Pitkämäki; born December 19, 1982 in Ilmajoki ) is a Finnish javelin thrower.

At age 16, he began with the javelin. After a continuous improvement, he represented his country at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where he finished in eighth place with 83.01 meters.

His previous personal best, he scored on 26 June 2005 in Kuortane in Finland with 91.53 meters (as of July 2010). He was before the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki as a favorite to win, but to the disappointment was the Finnish audience only fourth with 81.27 m. At the European Championships in Gothenburg in 2006, he finished second behind the Norwegian Olympic champions Andreas Thorkildsen.

At the Golden League meeting in Rome on 13 July 2007 Pitkämäkis Speer left the union sector and met the French long jumper Salim Sdiri in the back. Sdiri was admitted with a more than ten centimeters deep wound to the hospital. The incident sparked a discussion on security measures for track and field competitions.

At the 2007 World Championships in Osaka Pitkämäki won on 2 September 2007 title with a distance of 90.33 meters and directed the co-favorite Andreas Thorkildsen and Breaux Greer to the places. End of the year he was voted European Athlete of the Year and ahead of Kimi Raikkonen Sportsman of the Year in Finland.

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, he won with 86.16 meters, the bronze medal in the javelin. 2009 Pitkämäki reached at the World Championships in Berlin 5th place A year later he won at the 2010 European Championships with 86.67 meters, the bronze medal. At the Olympic Games in London in 2012 he finished fifth.

Tero Pitkämäki has a competition weight of 92 kilograms with a height of 1.95 meters.