Yrjö Saarela

Yrjö Erik Mikael Saarela ( born July 13, 1884 in Liminka, † June 30, 1951 ) was a Finnish wrestler and Olympic champion.

He comes from Oulu and began in 1904 at the local sports club Oulusuun Pohja ring with the rings. With a size of 1.85 m, he weighed about 100 kg, and wrestled in the heavyweight division in the then common in Europe Greco- Roman style. In his time there were in the competitions still often large differences in the classification of weight classes. The competition rules were not as committed as they are today, which sometimes led to unjust results. Yrjö but it was apparently not affected.

In the years 1908 and 1909 he won the Finnish championship in the heavyweight division. He was very successful at the international level. He twice competed in the Olympic Games, winning a gold and a silver medal. In 1911 he won in Helsinki and the World Champion title at heavyweight.

Yrjö was very long active and occupied in 1929 at the age of 45 years in the domestic Oulu in the Finnish Championships again a third place in the heavyweight division.

The results of the championships in which he launched, are to be seen in the next sections.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, GR = Greco-Roman style, Hs = light heavyweight, S = Heavy weight)

Finnish Championships

Swell

• DOCUMENTATION of International Wrestling Championships FILA, 1976
• Overview of the Finnish championship since 1898
• International Wrestling Database of the University of Leipzig