Väinö Siikaniemi

Urho Peltonen , Julius Saaristo and Väinö Siikaniemi in the 1912 Olympic Games .

Väinö Villiam Siikaniemi (born Siegberg ; born March 27, 1887 in Hollola , † August 24, 1932 in Helsinki ) was a Finnish athlete who was successful as a javelin thrower in the years before the First World War . He was also a poet.

At the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912 he competed in both one-armed and two-armed javelin throwing. In one-armed throwing, he did not make it to the final, as only the three best throwers in the qualification were allowed. With 52.43 m he was more than three meters behind the Hungarian Mór Kóczán , who won bronze. In the two-armed throwing, however, he was only defeated by his compatriot Julius Saaristo (109.42 m), the silver medalist in the one-armed throwing, with 101.13 m . Urho Peltonen with 100.24 m completed the three-time Finnish triumph.

The following comparison shows that the victory over the famous Swede Eric Lemming , who finished fourth in the two-armed javelin throwing, was primarily due to the greater distances with the weaker limb:

athlete	stronger arm	weaker arm
Saaristo	61.00	48.42
Siikaniemi	54.09	47.04
Peltons	53.58	46.66
lemming	58.33	40.26

Web links

• Väinö Siikaniemi in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )