At the pole position of the European Championship, there was some confusion about the transfer of the qualification.
Juho Alasaari told about Friday’s events. Jaakko Stenroos / AOP
The heavy rain that erupted at Espoo’s Leppävaara stadium on Friday literally watered the men’s U23 pole vault qualification.
The qualifier was moved to Saturday. When the race was finally completed, Juho Alasaari jumped handsomely to the EC final.
According to Alasaari, the qualification could have been skipped already on Friday. Many competitors also had the same opinion.
– Yes, yesterday there was a bit of wondering if it was necessary to move. The race wouldn’t have been postponed that much because of the rain, however, the Finn said.
The athletes had little say when the decision was made.
– Here, the administrators mostly asked the bigger sweatshops about the decision. Someone then announced that the qualifier will be moved to tomorrow.
On Saturday, however, the jumpers were already in a better mood when the sun was shining and the wind was blowing.
– No one complained today! It was so nice to jump.
Alasaari claimed the final place with three jumps and a score of 535.
– Almost according to plans. Three jumps came instead of two today. I hope it won’t affect tomorrow that it’s completely broken now. Well, not at all, the jumper joked.
A rain qualifier could have suited the Finn even better than dry weather, although even now the result was excellent.
– I would probably have done just fine in the rain. I’ve jumped only rain rolls and crosswind rolls. They have experience for this summer. This was the first nice weather.