Eduard Hämäläinen
Eduard Hämäläinen ( born January 21, 1969 in Karaganda, Kazakhstan ) is a former decathlete. In 23 ten fights he reached over 8000 points, and in seven contests he surpassed 8500 points. The 1.94 m wide and as a competitor 93 kg heavy athlete won during his career for three different countries medals.
Nationality
Hämäläinens grandfather had been deported in 1917 from Finland to Russia. Hämäläinen launched until 1991 for the Soviet Union in 1992 for the CIS and from 1993 to 1996 in Belarus, where he lived in Grodno. In 1996, he moved to western Finnish Kuortane, and from 1 January 1997 Hämäläinen was allowed to start for Finland.
Career
At the Junior World Championships in 1988 in Sudbury, Canada Hämäläinen won with 7596 points bronze behind the German Michael Kohnle and the Czechs Robert Změlík. At the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, he finished with 8233 points in seventh place. He became a master of the CIS in 1992, at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 he gave the high jump on.
As part of the World Indoor Championships in Toronto in 1993 was discharged as a Vorführwettbewerb heptathlon for men. Hämäläinen finished with 6075 points in third place behind the Americans and the Canadians Dan O'Brien Mike Smith. The competition was Hämäläinens fourth and final heptathlon, a year before Toronto, he had reached 6096 points in Berlin. In Stuttgart at the World Championships in 1993 Hämäläinen won silver. With 8724 points, he was 93 points behind Dan O'Brien.
In 1994, he reached for his victory at the Mösle Mehrkampf meeting in Götzis with 8735 points, the highest score of his career. At the European Championships in Helsinki in 1994, he gave up after the first day. A year later at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, he won as two years before silver. With 8489 points, he was 206 points behind Dan O'Brien. His last start for Belarus with Hämäläinen at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. With 8613 points, he finished fifth, he had 51 points off the bronze medalist, Tomáš Dvořák from the Czech Republic.
The 1997 season began Hämäläinen on his third after 1993 and 1994 victory in Götzis with 8617 points. Four weeks later, he joined the group B of the decathlon European Cup on home soil for the first time in Oulu in the Finnish national team and won with 8260 points. At the 1997 World Championships in Athens, he scored with 8730 points, the second best result of his career and put the still (as of 2007 ) applicable Finnish national record on. The winner Tomáš Dvořák however, he had 107 points behind.
At the European Championships 1998 in Budapest, medals went exclusively to athletes who had grown up in the Soviet Union. It won the Estonian Erki Nool with 8667 points, ahead of Hämäläinen with 8587 points and the Russians Lew Lobodin with 8571 points.
After he had to miss the 1999 season due to injury and in 2000 also in Götzis the competition could not finish, he joined in August 2000 in Lahti for the first time at the Finnish Championships and won with 8240 points, the second national championship of his career. At the Olympic Games in Sydney, he was then, however, completely out of shape. Following the Olympic motto that participation is more important than winning, he did not break from competition but finished with 7520 points to 24th place. With the lowest score in a completed decathlon since 1989, he did not want to end his career. In 2001 he delivered the Mösle Mehrkampf meeting and at the European Cup from two 8000 -point competitions, but then gave at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton on after two competitions.
Appreciation
Although he only won four silver medals at major championships and identifies a fifth place as the best performance of his Olympic career, Eduard Hämäläinen is one of the top ten fighters of all time. He belongs to the end of 2006, only seven athletes who came to over 8600 points in the average of their top ten competitions. His particular strength was the 110- meter hurdles, in which only reach Frank Busemann even better services in the context of a decathlon. His weakest discipline was the Javelin, here he was in his entire career to surpass the 60 -meter mark in only two ten fights.