Veikko Heinonen

Veikko Heinonen
nation	Finland
birthday	4th October 1934
place of birth	Lahti ,  Finland
date of death	4th November 2015
Career
society	Lahden Hiihtoseura
National squad	since 1951
Pers. Best	118 m (Kulm 1956)
End of career	1966
Medal table
World Cup medals 0 × 1 × 0 ×
Nordic World Ski Championships silver 1954 Falun Normal hill

Veikko Heinonen (born October 4, 1934 in Lahti ; † November 4, 2015 ) was a Finnish ski jumper and pesäpallo player.

Ski jumping

Heinonen, who started for Lahden Hiihtoseura, won his first competitions in 1951. In 1951 and 1952, he became Finnish youth champion in ski jumping. In 1954 he was appointed to the A-national team and won at the Nordic World Ski Championships 1954 in Sweden's Falun with jumps of 72.5 and 76 m silver medal behind compatriot Matti Pietikäinen . He was only able to prevail against the Swede Bror Östman , who was 0.5 points behind him, because of better posture marks . Together with Pietikäinen he was able to win the first international medals in ski jumping for Finland at this world championship. Despite the success, he was not nominated for further international championships after the World Cup. In the Swiss ski jumping week in 1955, Heinonen finished seventh. He was third in the competitions in St. Moritz and Le Locle , but fell on the first jump in Arosa and thus lost his chances of winning a medal in the overall standings. In the Four Hills Tournament 1955/56 Heinonen fell in Oberstdorf on the first jump and finished 23rd in Garmisch-Partenkirchen .

In addition to the world championships, he also took second place in the ski competitions in Salpausselkä , Falun and Ounasvaara . In 1956, he won two competitions at the ski flying week on the Kulm . In the first part of the competition, however, he had to compete exhausted after the journey was delayed due to a general strike , and only came in sixth. In the overall standings, he was second behind Werner Lesser from the GDR . At the Kulm, Heinonen jumped the longest jump of his career with 118 meters. At the Finnish Championships he was fourth in 1955 and seventh in 1954 after he failed his second jump there.

Heinonen ended his competitive career in 1966 after falling during a practice jump and suffering a kidney injury.

Pesäpallo

Veikko Heinonen played in the Finnish Pesäpallo league between 1953 and 1958 in the shirt of the Lahden Mailaveikot club . With these he was once runner-up.

Private

His son Kari Heinonen was a ski jumper in the Finnish national team in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Web links

• Veikko Heinonen in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Suomalainen mäkihypyn MM mitalisti kuoli