The Finnish Swimming Association has announced a 10-swimmer roster that will travel to the 2013 World Championships at the end of June. That includes 5 of the 7 members of their very young Olympic Team, plus some new additions including Louisville All-American Tanja Kylliainen.
This list has been labeled a “pre-selection” list, with more names potentially waiting to be added later in the summer.
Finland’s Olympic roster averaged just 20 years old in 2012, and even that number was skewed by the veteran of the team, the great Hanna Maria Seppala, at 27-years old (now 28.)
With another year under their belts, this roster is really one of the promising “small nation” squads in the world. Among the best changes to advance are American raised and trained Matias Koski. Shortly after graduating high school last year, he placed as high as 22nd in the 400 meter free at the Olympics (3:54.96). In his first season at Georgia, he was the SEC Champion in the 500 free, was 4th at NCAA’s in the same event, and 3rd at NCAA’s in the 1650 – all with huge lifetime bests.
Kylliainen, another American-based swimmer (who admits to only speaking a bit of Finnish), was 8th at the 2013 NCAA Championships in the 200 fly and 10th in the 400 IM.
17-year old Jenna Laukkanen is a rising breaststroker who has already been 1:09 in the 100 over long course (and is even better in short course.) Emilia Pikkarainen is a butterflier and many-times over National Record holder who made her first Olympic team in 2008 when she was only 15 years old.
The most decorated of the women’s squad is hands-down Hannah-Maria Seppala. She was the 2003 World Champion in the 100 free (when she was only a teenager), and has four European Championships to go with it.
The men’s squad, which thus far has not annointed enough athletes to even assemble a relay, is made up of Koski, veteran breaststroker Eetu Karvonen, who was the NCAA Division II Champion in both the 100 and the 200 in 2013, and Mattson missed semi-finaling in the 200 breaststroke at the Olympics by one spot: finishing 17th overall.
The two biggest names not yet on this list are Ari-Pekka Liukkonen, who placed 4th at the 2012 European Championships in the 50 free with a 22.22; and 400 IM’er Noora Laukkanen. Both were members of the Finnish Olympic Team.
Women
Anni Alitalo
Kivirinta Veera
Tanja Kylliäinen
Jenna Laukkanen
Anna Mäkinen
Emilia Pikkarainen
Hanna-Maria Seppälä
Men
Eetu Karvonen
Matias Koski
Matti Mattsson
We have had young and promising team for too long. Development frustratingly stalls in heats or semi-finals at the world-championship level. The last spurt to finals or even to the podium is missing. Maybe more of promising Finnish swimmers should head to U.S. looking for unpatriotic top-class swimming coaches 😉
The last medal at the World Championships was, just as referred to in the article, Hanna-Maria Seppala´s gold in 2003, Barcelona. 100m free is a classy event for which the gold in long-course WC is something to be proud of. Although about 10 years have now gone since the last medal at this level, as far as I know, swimming has succeeded to attract reasonably new hobbyists, especially girls, in… Read more »