Samuel Purola is in the swing of his life.
Samuel Purola ran the Finnish record. JAAKKO STENROOS / AOP
A sprinter Samuel Purola ran a new Finnish record in the 200 meters when the digitals stopped at 20.45 at the under-23 Nordic and Baltic championships in Malmö on Sunday.
The previous Finnish record was Tommi Hartonen on behalf of. In 2000, Hartonen ran a time of 20.47 at the Sydney Olympic Games.
– The run of my life! Now it was easy until the end and the package stayed together. That feeling combined with the circumstances, the result was of this class, Purola was happy in SUL’s announcement.
The run had statistically acceptable wind, as the wind reading at the time of the run was +1.7 m/s. The whole weekend in Malmö had been blown by a blizzard, which made many of the top times unstatistical. Now the weather gods were on Purola’s side.
– It feels good. After a long time, a decent jump in my results. I didn’t expect this much, if we’re being honest, Purola said.
Purola also ran strongly in his minor sport on Saturday, as he broke his new record in the 400 meters. Purola finished second in the race with a time of 47.15.
Sunday’s SE result shows that the highly acidifying side trip did not weigh too much.
– Yes, I felt it a bit in my body, but of course that’s part of it when you pull a double in two days. However, I didn’t let it interfere with my run today. I just did what I could today, Purola said.
– I rose to a new level.
Tommi Hartonen lost both of his Finnish high speed records in a short period of time, because Samuli Samuelsson ran the 100m new SE a week ago in Porvoo. At that time, Samuelsson ran a time of 10.16.