Yrjö Saarela

Yrjö Saarela, 1912

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

Life

He comes from Oulu and started wrestling at the local ring sports club Oulusuun Pohja in 1904. With a height of 1.85 m, he weighed around 100 kg and wrestled in the heavyweight division in the Greco-Roman style common in Europe at the time. In his time there were still often big differences in the division of the weight classes at the competitions. Also, the competition rules were not as firmly established as they are today, which sometimes led to unfair results. Yrjö was obviously not affected by this.

In 1908 and 1909 he won the Finnish heavyweight championship. He was also very successful on an international level. He started twice at the Olympic Games, winning a gold and a silver medal. In 1911 he also won the world heavyweight title in Helsinki .

Yrjö was active for a very long time and finished in 1929 at the age of 45 in Oulu, his native country, at the Finnish championships again in third place in the heavyweight division.

The results of the championships in which he started can be seen in the following sections.

International success

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

• 1908, silver medal , OS in London , GR, Hs (up to 93 kg body weight), with victories over Henry Nielsen, Denmark , E. Nixon, Great Britain , Marcel Dubois, Belgium and Carl Jensen , Denmark a. a loss to Verner Weckman , Finland ;
• 1911, 1st place , World Championships in Helsinki , GR, S (over 83 kg body weight), with victories over Adolf Lindfors , Alex Järvinen and Johan Olin and a draw against Emil Backenius, all Finland;
• 1912, gold medal , OS in Stockholm , GR, S (over 82.5 kg body weight), with victories over David Karlsson, Sweden , Jean Hauptmann, Germany, Gustaf Lindström , Sweden, Jakob Neser , Germany a . Sören Marius Jensen , Denmark a. despite a loss to Johan Olin , Finland

Finnish championships

• 1908, 1st place , GR, S (over 70 kg body weight), before Adolf Lindfors, Porvoon Akilles u. Antti Kairama, Viipuri Tarmo,
• 1909, 1st place , GR, S (over 83 kg body weight), before Adolf Lindfors u. Viktor Salovaara, Vaasan Kiisto;
• 1929, 3rd place , GR, S (over 82.5 kg body weight), behind Emil Wecksten, Hallan Visa u. Erkki Kallio, Oulusuun Pohja

swell

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

Web links

• Overview of the Finnish championships in Greco-Roman style
• Yrjö Saarela in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Profile of Yrjö Saarela at the Institute for Applied Training Science