Harala has talked about the pain points of her relationship openly in the podcast.
Lotta Harala has talked about the ups and downs of her private life in a podcast. PASI LEISMA
Hurdle runner Lotta Harala, 33, and ex-hockey player Matias Myttynen35, announced their split on Instagram on Tuesday.
The couple’s love story began in 2013. Myttynen was then playing in the SM league for JYP and was just reaching the top of his career. Both of them already lived under the conditions of top sports.
Harala has made the former seventh grader of Maria Huntington with Timeout podcast. The friends have also talked openly about their private lives in the episodes.
In February 2024, Harala said that his and Myttynen’s relationship had drifted to the brink of divorce at some point. The connection was lost.
– Matias got the feeling that he wants to go to Timbuktu and leave everything from his current life – and that he no longer gets from our relationship what he wants from it, Harala said in the podcast.
– Matias wondered if he still wants the same things as before and if he wants children at all. It [lapsen saaminen] has always been an important dream for me.
Harala says that Myttynen brought up the possibility of leaving.
– Of course I thought about the fact that we might break up, but it wasn’t a scary thought for me, Harala recalls.
– I didn’t want to end up with that, but it also didn’t feel like the world would collapse at that moment. Still, I would have been ready to do a lot so that we don’t part.
Harala and Myttynen pulled away for a moment to clarify the situation.
In Tuesday’s joint publication, Harala and Myttynen spoke beautifully of each other.
– We have decided to end our long relationship. We are still united by shared life, warmth, respect and gratitude towards each other. We ask for peace, space and privacy in the midst of this change, they wrote.
A family dream
Matias Myttynen and Lotta Harala started dating in their twenties. Tomi Natri / All Over Press
Last May, Harala told Iltalehti in an interview that she dreamed of starting a family.
Then she said that she thought about it a lot, and it was not made easier by the fact that there were many younger mothers in her circle.
– I have a really strong fire, will and goals for my sports career. I also dream about children. Biology cannot be influenced more than that. It makes me think a lot about how long I’m ready to put off trying for a child, Harala said.
He said that he decided that it would be time to start a family only after his sports career.
– If I have children, I would like to focus fully on that stage of life, and not stress about when I have time to train and recover. I don’t even want to try to combine the two. I want to do everything on sports terms now.
Harala said on the Timeout podcast in November that he experienced uncertainty during his single years. In the podcast, he reflected that if he were single now, he would enjoy it to the fullest and “go there confident and confident”.
Coach
Lotta Harala’s World Cup semi-final ended in discus in the fall of 2025. Jenni Gästgivar
The couple gave their first joint interview on television only in the spring of 2024, when they were MTV’s Morning in Finland as a guest.
At that time, it was already known that Myttynen was coaching Harala.
– Sometimes the hair seems to fall off, Myttynen joked about it Antero Mertaranta in the interview.
Myttynen pushed himself hard at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo last September. Harala’s World Cup semi-final came to a dull end with a stolen start and a discus.
In an interview with Yle, Myttynen took the blame for the theft on his neck.
– After yesterday’s preliminary round, the charge was loaded to have all the balls in the game and get a good, brave run. It’s entirely my responsibility that the download definitely went a little overboard, Myttynen told Yle.
Haralla holds the Finnish record in the 100-meter hurdles.