Hannu Siitonen

Hannu Siitonen (born March 18, 1949 in Parikkala ) is a Finnish athlete who was successful as a javelin thrower in the early 1970s .

Life

He was able to win the Finnish national championship five times in a row:

year	1970	1971	1972	1973	1974
Width (m)	84.06	85.42	87.66	89.52	88.28

He made his first international appearance at the European Championships in Helsinki in 1971 , where he landed two throws beyond the 80-meter line and came fourth with a performance of 83.84 m - 38 centimeters behind the bronze medalist Wolfgang Hanisch from the GDR , who recorded only a single 80-meter throw.

The following year he was even more unlucky at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich . In the final, which was decided by the two 90-meter throwers Klaus Wolfermann and Jānis Lūsis , he managed only one valid throw, and that was for the bronze medal, which went to US-American Bill Schmidt with 84.42 m , whole 11 centimeters too short. Once again, Siitonen was only fourth.

In 1973, at the final of the European Cup in Edinburgh , Siitonen again had to give way to Wolfermann (90.68 m) and Lusis (88.48 m) and came third with 84.08 m after he had reached the semi-finals in Oslo won with 89.03 m.

A year later, at the European Championships in Rome in 1974 , Siitonen's big hour struck. Of three valid final throws over 80 meters, the longest was measured at 89.58 m. With that he won the gold medal ahead of Wolfgang Hanisch, who was more than four meters behind with 85.46 m. With his second best distance of 84.72 m, Siitonen would have won silver, as third place, the Norwegian Terje Thorslund , reached 83.68 m.

In his last active year, Siitonen should finally come to Olympic honors at the 1976 Olympic Games . Against the outstanding Hungarian Miklos Nemeth , who set a new world record with 94.58 m, he did not succeed, but defeated the Romanian Gheorghe Megelea with 87.92 m , who threw at least 87.16 m. As in Rome, Siitonen would have made it into the medal ranks with his second best throw (86.58 m).

Siitonen achieved his personal best of 93.90 m in 1973.

Web links

• Hannu Siitonen in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )