Veli Lehtelä

Toimi Pitkänen and Veli Lehtelä (back) in 1964 in Amsterdam

Veli Veikko Valtteri Lehtelä (born September 6, 1935 in Sääksmäki ) is a former Finnish rower who reached the finals in three Olympic competitions and won two medals.

Career

The 1.83 m tall Lehtelä won at the European Championships in 1955 together with Toimi Pitkänen and helmsman Matti Niemi the silver medal in two with helmsman behind the boat from Switzerland. The following year the three rowers competed in a four-man team with Reino Poutanen and Kauko Hänninen and won the title at the European Championships in 1956 . At the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956, the Finns won the bronze medal with two tenths of a second ahead of the boat of the Australian hosts, the Italian boat won over the Swedes.

In the following years Pitkänen and Lehtelä competed in two without a helmsman . At the European Championships in 1958 , the two of them won their second European title after the title in the foursome in 1956. Two years later at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960, the two Finns won the bronze medal behind the boats from the Soviet Union and Austria. In 1961, the German two-man won the 1961 European championships ahead of the Finns. In the same year Pitkänen and Lehtelä won the Henley Royal Regatta . At the end of their career, Pitkänen and Lehtelä also reached the final at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo , but here they finished sixth and last.

literature

• Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. The Chronicle II. London 1948 - Tokyo 1964. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-328-00740-7 .

Web links

Commons : Veli Lehtelä  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Veli Lehtelä in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Veli Lehtelä at Worldrowing.com ( FISA database )
• European championships in two without a helmsman on sport-komplett.de
• European championships in two with a helmsman on sport-komplett.de
• European championships in four with a helmsman on sport-komplett.de

Footnotes

1. ↑ Results of the Royal Regatta ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.