National Scholastic Athletics Foundation

Jim Spier's Blog from Finland

Photos and videos are on our Facebook page!   Check out Barry Krammes' blog about the trip (with daily updates and photos):

Finland - Day 7 (Tuesday, August 7, 2012)

In contrast to yesterday's sunny day, we woke up to heavy rains.

After breakfast, I went to pay the hotel bill.  Soon thereafter we were on our way to Oulu.  It was about 9:30am.

Oulu is about 4 hours (on a good day) from Kourtane.  We used the same driver, Anne, and her comfortable van.  The route would take us northeast where we'd meet the west coast of the Gulf of Bothnia about half-way, the body of water separating Sweden and Finland.

About 2 hours into the trip, Kimmo took us to a spot on the water.  It was a small marina on the pristine gulf.  We took pictures, dodging the raindrops, and then continued on.
Traveling another hour or so, we arrived at the northern Finland bird center at Liminganlahti (Liminka Bay).  Kimmo, like most Finns, is at one with nature.  If he wasn't a coach, he would use his Forestry degree to work in the woods.  He seems to know so much about Finland's flora and fauna. The bird center was spectacular.  We climbed the tower and used a telescope to spot the birds.

We finally arrived in Oulu at about 3:30pm.  Oulu is a city of 140,00, sits 105 miles south of the arctic circle and the largest city in all of northern Scandinavia.  It is quite a nice place and is known as the Finnish "Silicon Valley".  It is a surprisingly international city, with numerous high tech companies and a highly regarded university.
We had a real sit-down dinner in an Italian restaurant called Rossa, "combining Finnish and Italian cuisine".  Afterwards, Kimmo took the athletes to register, leaving Joy, Paul and I to do some window shopping.  We strolled the streets as best we could given the heavy rains.

Anne, the driver, picked us up an hour later and we headed to track.

We were expecting a track with same metal stands and a tent or two to protect us from the weather.  What we found was a modern stadium, seating about 2500, with an overhang over the main stands and radio, TV, timing and press areas along the top of the stands, all enclosed and heated.   We were pleasantly surprised.  Additionally the facility had a state-of-the-art scoreboard, fully automatic timing, a wind gauge and laser measurement!  This is first class!

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't first class.  By now it was about 50 degrees with winds at about 20mph, with heavy rains.  Horizontal heavy rains.
We did not know what to expect from the athletes.  We knew they would give it their best shot, however.  They performed extremely well, exceeding our expectations.  Here are the results:

    Girls
1. Finnish athlete #1 (name unknown)  164-1
2. Haley Crouser     158-8 (F, 154-10, 158-8, 157-8, 153-6, 153-3)
3. Finnish athlete #2 (name unknown)  135-11
4. Christine Streisel    133-10   (132-8, F, 132-4, F, F, 133-10)
  

  Boys
1. Sean Keller     235-1    (191-1, 235-1, F, F, 209-3, F)
2. Jami Kinnunen  (Kimmo's 17 year old son) 218-11  (he has a lifetime best of 253-3)
3. Kyle Felpel     202-5    (200-2, 191-3, 202-5, 194-5, F F)
4. Jonathan Strauss    194-2 (194-2, 171-10, F, 179-10, F, 176-1)
5. Severi Aalto     193-7
6. Heikki Kuurola     180-8

I would say that you could easily add 20 feet to the above performances to get to what they would have thrown under better conditions.  It appears that the training is really paying off!
We wanted to leave the stadium by 9:00pm, but the competition did not end until about 9:30. There was the furtive plea from the athletes, saying "Do you think we could stop at Mc Donald's on the way back?"  Of course I could not say no.

So we stopped at one of the two Mc Donald's in Oulu.  The prices there are nothing like that in the U.S.  A "Big Mac", for example, cost about $8.00.  But we loaded up.  Meanwhile, we discovered the satellite TV in the van.  We could watch the Olympics on the way home!

We took off with the Olympics on the television but, as we got further and further away from Oulu,  the picture faded.  So most of us caught some sleep.

We stopped at a truck stop at about 1:00am for some coffee for the driver.  Kimmo walked in and was immediately recognized.  They were not people he knew.  It was if Joe Di Maggio walked into a local delicatessen.  Kimmo was legendary in Finland, like most of its javelin champions, and everyone knows him.
We got back to Kuortane at about 2:30am.  We were to leave at 7:30am for the Helsinki airport, another 4 hour drive.  I didn't have an alarm, but I knew the sun rising at 4:30am would wake me up.

So we gathered the "troops", and off we went to Helsinki at 7:30am.  It was pretty quiet in the van.  Most were asleep.  We arrived at the airport at about noon, checked in with Finnair and departed Helsinki at 2:10pm.
The plane was sold out (as was the arrival flight).  There was a lot more sleeping by our group.  We finally arrived at JFK airport at about 3:50pm (10:50pm Finland time).  Surprisingly, there was a short waiting line at customs, and we all breezed through.

Barry, Kyle, Jonathan and Christine were met by Christine's coach, John Kotchmar, who delivered them back to Pennsylvania.  Avion had to be rerouted and was not on the same flight as us, but went home to Las Vegas via Amsteram and Atlanta.  Haley and Sean connected to Portland, OR.  Paul Limmer drove his car back home to Northport, Long Island.  Joy went to Houston and I went to Raleigh Durham.  All will be off to college soon except for Haley and Christine, who will return to their high schools for their senior year.  They have been and will continue to be heavily pursued by college coaches in the coming year.

Joy put it best the next day after being up for over 24 hours, "I feel like I've been in the rinse cycle of my washing machine".   I'm sure all slept well in their own beds.

I think this truly a memorable experience.  The athletes got high level coaching from the best in the world.  And it was wonderful being around these "high level" kids.  We all look forward to the October and December clinics in Chapel Hill and wish the college-bound quartet the best.

Finland - Day 6 (Monday, August 6, 2012)

I had neglected to mention Sean Keller's lost bag.  It did not come in with his other luggage when we arrived in Helsinki.  So we arranged to have the taxi driver pick it up when she picked up Avione Allgood last Thursday.  Somehow, that didn't happen.

I called Finnair baggage claim and got the answering service.  Fortunately it was bilingual Finnish-English.  But there was a 15 minute wait, and I lost patience and hung up. I decided to go their web site where they had a place to send an e-mail about lost baggage.  I did so, noting the bag number and our location, 200 miles from the Helsinki airport.  I waited for a confirmation and a reply.  None came.  The next day, the bag magically appeared.  I had thought my e-mail had gotten lost in the internet ether.  I should have known that the Finns would fulfill their obligation!

There was only one session today because the meet  is tomorrow.  Even so, it lasted about 3 hours.  It started  out with the usual field ("floor") hockey, followed by weight lifting and more javelin runway work. 
At 2:30pm, Kimmo arranged to have his wife, Sari, take us to Finland's second largest store.  It is about 20 miles from Kuortane (I don't remember the town or the name of the store, but I'm certain that they each included the letter "K" as most words in Finland do!).   Paul Limmer drove Kimmo's car with Sari driving hers (Kimmo had a personal coaching session to do).  We crammed the athletes and the adults in the two cars.  We put Kimmo's favorite CD in the player -  Credence Clearwater Revival - and off we went.  (Note about Kimmo's car:  it has a cracked windshield - from the inside - as a result of him transporting javelins, and with them shifting enroute).

The store was mammoth.  Imagine a Walmart and a Home Depot all under the same roof.  That was at least the size.  We were wandering through the store and Barry Krammes said, facetiously, "When do we get to the Javelin Department"?  We turned the corner, and there they were!  Along with a variety of shots!  Javelin is truly the national sport.

We hung around that store (sort of a shopping center) for about 2 hours and went back to the facility.

At night, our final one in Kuortane since we'd be in Oulu to the meet the next night, we all went to one of two pizza shops in town.  It was surprisingly good.  The staff and the athletes where there, as well as Kimmo, his wife Sari and three of his four kids:  Jami, Jirko and Juuli.  The athletes really bonded with Kimmo's kids, especially Jirko (about 10 years old) and Juuli (about 8).

After we finished we did the usual post-meal ritual - brought all of the dirty dishes to the kitchen.  We had done that at the cafeteria all week, but this was a restaurant, albeit a small one.  It must be a Finnish thing and, actually, it's a very nice thing.  The restaurant owners really appreciated it.
It was a beautifully sunny day all day.  But that was about to change.  Off we went to bed prior to our 4 hour trip to Oulu the next day.

Finland - Day 5

After practice Saturday night, Coach Barry Krammes reviewed the day's videos with the athletes.    Barry has become an invaluable asset to the group, reinforcing what is learned each day and adding to his own arsenal of coaching techniques.  The good news is that much of what is taught here coincides with Barry's coaching/teaching philosophy.

Barry set up some sauna time for the kids on Saturday night.  The girls were scheduled from 10pm until 11pm, and the boys from 11pm until midnight. The routine is as follows:  jump in the lake for a short time, then into the sauna for 10 minutes, then repeat 4-5 times.  The report the next day were positive in terms of "cooling down" and relaxation.  (Kimmo said that there was once a Finnish national championship in sauna sitting.  The more water that is poured over the coals, the hotter the sauna gets.  A real test of "Sisu" (guts) is to see who can last the longest.  The championship was discontinued after one of the contestants nearly died.  That, I suppose, was preferable to showing lack of Sisu). 

Sunday at this athletic center is much quieter than any other day thus far.  It seems to be transition day where new teams come in to train and others leave.  We have noticed, for example,  a soccer club numbering over 100 who checked in today.  And there are other "newcomers" just arriving.
The indoor facility was virtually empty this morning empty save for our group.   It was back to the "games".  In order to get the heart rate up, another vigorous game of indoor field hockey was played.  That was followed with runway work and  javelin carry drills.  In between lots there was lots of stretching.

After a break for lunch, it was off to the outdoor track.  There was more runway work and each of the athletes marked their runway start positions in preparation for the meet in Oulu on Tuesday.   It was raining pretty heavily on and off, so after about 1 1/2 hours at the track, it was off the indoor facility for more drills.  This session lasted about 3 1/2 hours and everyone got back to the restaurant just before all the food was carted away.  But this time the sun had come out (of course) and it was a brilliant early evening.

Between sessions, Joy Kamani and I walked to the village. We waited until the rain stopped to begin our 1 mile walk, but the rain started up again as soon as we left the hotel.  We proceeded anyway.  We "scoped out" the two pizza restaurants in town.  The plan was to take the kids to one of the two on Monday night to give them (and us) a break from the cafeteria food.  (The food has been adequate, but not exactly of the gourmet variety).

I took a menu from one of the restaurants and later translated it via "google translation".  Otherwise it would be a "crap shoot".  There is lots of "kinkku" (ham) and "juusto" (cheese).   They have a special "Z-Burger with "chedarjuusto".  It also includes "salaatti" (salad), "tomaatti" and "suolakurkku" (pickles).  If you're really hungry, you would have an "Iso Z-ateria" which, I presume, is something like a Whopper ("Iso" meaning "big").

We also stopped at one of the two grocery stores in town, the K-Market.  The K-Market is right next to the other supermarket, the S-Market.   We purchased several boxes of cookies for a later snack and some butter ("Voi" in Finnish).  A big part of each of the meals at the hotel is freshly made bread, but the only spread available is margarine.  So we purchased a small tub of "Voi" which I will bring to the meals each day to go along with the strawberry and apricot jam I purchased two days ago.  (I purchased the jam at the S-Market; I like to spread the business around).

That night we spent watching the Olympics in the restaurant with the big screen.  All the kids were with us and we put a significant dent in the cookies.  They shut down early (right in the middle of one of the 400m hurdles heats), so the adults raced to Paul Limmer's room to watch the last hour. We celebrated Sanya Richards' 400 victory and marveled at the incredible men's 100m final with Usain Bolt running the third fastest time ever.

Monday's training will be only one session, starting at 11am.  The meet in Oulu is Tuesday, and the preparation will be geared towards that.  We'll leave Kuortane  at 9am for the 4 hour drive north.  Oulu is a city of about 140,000 and is 105 miles south of the Arctic Circle.  There are, apparently, some pretty good restaurants there, and we'll all have a nice meal when we arrive.

The meet should be over at 9pm.  We'll drive back soon thereafter, and get back to Kuortane between 1-2am.  Then it's off to Helsinki at 7:30am for the 2pm return flight home.  And back to reality.

Finland Day 4

No games today!  Like any good coach, Kimmo Kinnunen knows when to back off.  The practices of the last two days have been tough.  Kimmo wants the athletes to be prepared for the competition next Tuesday without being too exhausted.

The morning session began with lots of stretching exercises.  Then it was runway work on the indoor track with javelin carry.  It was a two hour session.
Between sessions I took a walk around the lake.  Or, at least, around part of the lake.  As is the case in the far north in the summertime, mosquitoes are in abundance.  During the walk I picked and ate the Finnish variety of blueberries growing wild everywhere while fighting off the bugs.

The afternoon session began at 3pm at the outdoor stadium with some serious throwing.  As good as our kids are, the best technically were the two Finnish kids, Konsta and Kaspari.  That is obviously because they have been exposed to the Finnish system all their lives.  Our kids performed well, however.

That was 20 meter sprints using the dartfish electronic evaluation system.  The athletes were measured several ways, including being time via  a running start and a standing start.  They also covered the 20 meters via racewalking!  The total time for both sessions today was less than 5 hours.

The boys seem to enjoy the boy-girl ratio here.  It seems that most of the residents this week are from figure skating, gymnastics, volleyball and swimming clubs.  And they are all female, blond, high school age, and very attractive, something that has not gone unnoticed by Sean, Kyle and Jonathan.

From practice Kimmo drove the kids to a hamburger "joint" about 5 miles away.  It was very much appreciated by them.

After dinner we sat with Kimmo and his wife and four children who had joined him for the weekend.  They live bout 100 miles from Kuortane.  Kimmo had a hip replacement in January.  I asked how his rehab went.  He said, "I moved my hip back and forth 22, 410 times".  I didn't think I heard correctly and asked him to repeat that.  "I move hip and leg back and forth 22,410 times.  I counted to help doctor with future patients", he replied.

Later we watched the Olympics together.  While the final heptathlon 800 meters was being run, Kimmo knew exactly how fast the leaders had to run in order to get a medal.  I was using my conversion chart and he was using his head!

I still marvel at this place and the nation of Finland.  I had only been here once before.  That was for a week during the inaugural IAAF World Championships in 1983 in Helsinki.  I loved the people and country then and this trip has reinforced that. 

With Sweden to its east and Russia to its west, and the with numerous invasions over the centuries from both sides, the Finns have become tough and resourceful.  Couple that with some brutal winters and you begin the understand the concept of "Sisu", loosely meaning "guts".  It is the philosophy that permeates the culture the athletics.

In a country of a little over 5 million people, it's hard to believe how accomplished  they are in the javelin.  Their javelin prowess is why we came here.   See below for the summary of male Olympic medals.  Noone comes close to Finland.  We hope a bit of what makes them successful will rub off on the kids.
    
  G S B  Total
   
Finland  7 7 7  21
Sweden 3 1 2  6
Norway  3 1 1  5
Czech Republic 3 1 0  4
Latvia *  2 3 1  6
Germany 2 1 1  4
Hungary 1 2 4  7
USA  1 2 2  5

Finland - Day 3

After writing yesterday's blog, I took off to town.  It's about a one mile walk.   All the shops open at 9am except for the two grocery store which open at 8am.  I purchased a few bars of soap for the kids and some strawberry and apricot jam (For some reason, as good as the homemade rye bread is here, the only spread available is margarine.  So I'll carry my jam each morning to breakfast in case an of our group wants some).
Today's practice began at 10am.  It began with about another hour or so of field hockey, then 20 minutes of stretching.  Those activities got the heart rate up significantly.  Then it was about an hour and one-half of weights at the 10 different stations that Kimmo set up (the kids are now calling his workouts "Kimmo therapy").

Joining us the last two days have been two young aspiring javelin throwers, Konsta and Kaspari (the names are something like that). Kaspari, a 15 year old, has thrown the javelin 210 feet.  Konsta is the leading  Finnish junior and has a best of 250'.  They have bonded with our boys and now go everywhere with them.
While we were in the gym, the Finnish junior girls volleyball team was working out.  And there was some kind of tryout with guys doing wind sprints and being measured with the dartfish electronic system.  There was another station where the testers measured vertical leap while carrying 100+ pounds.  The tryout may have been for ice hockey as present was a Finnish NHL player who everyone seemed to know.

We arranged to have all of the kids get a massage and, after the morning session, each went to the masseuse for a half-hour session. 

During the lunch break we watched the morning  of Day 1 of the Olympics.  One of the three restaurants on site has a big room with a very large screen TV.  Though the language is Finnish, the broadcast shows everything - every heat, every throw, every jump.  It is so much better than what we get in the U.S.  And not one commercial!

Lunch, by the way, included reindeer, which was quite good.  It was marinated in and was very tender.

The rain was coming down fairly heavily by now, so Kimmo decided to do the afternoon session in the gym.  It began at 4pm with basketball, badminton and more field hockey.   By 6pm, Kimmo began some running/bounding drills.  There was hopping, skipping, left foot, right foot, both feet, fast slow - over an hour's worth.  The kids was starting to feel it.

They finally got to dinner at about 7:45pm.  The evening session of the Olympics was to start at 9pm (Finland's time zone is 2 hours later than that of London).   The adults retired to the restaurant with the big screen and the kids took off to their rooms.

At about 9:30pm, Barry Krammes went to do a room check to make sure the athletes were behaving themselves.  He came back to report that they were all asleep!   Christine Streisel woke up and came back with Barry to join us.

At about 9:45pm, about 40 kids stormed into the restaurant.  When they saw that track and field was on TV, they stopped short and one pleaded with us in Finnish.  Paul Limmer responded, "No hablo espanol".  A woman in the room said, "They are swimmers and would like to watch the 100 meter butterfly final and then they would leave".  We said it was OK.  They rushed in and quickly sat down.  We watched Michael Phelps win.  They applauded and were gone as quickly as they came in.  We switched back to the Olympics.

Kyle Felpel and Jonathan Strauss wandered in soon thereafter to see how fellow Pennsylvanian Ryan Whiting was doing.  Ryan had made the Olympic shot put final along with two other Americans.   Then Avione Allgood also joined us.  Konsta and Kaspari were there with us as well.  We ordered some pizza (this is now the nightly ritual).  The kids made fast work of the pizza (with  some help from us) and off they went back to bed.

The plans for Saturday are some more gym work in the morning and some serious throwing in the afternoon, weather-permitting.  Kimmo is gearing the training so the kids will be ready for the competition on Tuesday.  We will be competing against the Finnish junior team in Oulu on that day.  Oulu is about 200 miles north of Kuortane.

Finland - Day 1 and 2

    Getting there:  Tuesday, July 31

The day has finally arrived!  We are off to Finland for "total javelin immersion".    It's part of the National Scholastic's Kultan Keihas project begun last October.
Kultan Keihas ("Javelin Gold") is a joint effort between the National Scholastic's and javelin coach/guru Jeff Gorski.  The idea was to identify the top 3 high school javelin thowers  per gender and give them intense training in hopes of improving the American javelin fortunes on the world stage.  There were two clinics in 2011, one in October and one in December, both taking place in Chapel Hill, NC.

This trip brought the six identified athletes to Finland for intense week-long training.  Those six are Haley Crouser (US HS record holder), Avione Allgood (former US HS record holder and #2 all-time), Christine Streisel (#2 US in 2012), Sean Keller (US leader and #2 all-time), Jonathan Strauss (200+ thrower) and Kyle Felpel (200+ thrower).

Streisel, Strauss and Felpel are all Pennsylvanians and were brought to JFK airport in New York by John Kotchmar, Christine Streisel's highly successful coach at Tamaqua HS.  They were also accompanied by coach Barry Krammes, two-time US Olympic  trials finalist who would also act as coach/chaperone on the trip.   Avione Allgood was flying in that morning from Las Vegas, and Sean Keller and Haley Crouser  from Portland, Oregon.  Joy Kamani came in from Houston and I came from Raleigh-Durham.  NSSF board member Paul Limmer was local and joined us at Kennedy.  We were all on a direct flight from JFK to Helsinki, Finland at 5:40pm.
I routinely checked the schedule of the west coast kids during the day.  The flight of Haley and Sean was on schedule at 7am PDT and were about to take off.  Avione was stuck on the ground in Las Vegas, but should make the connection in time.  Two hours later she was still on the ground, with the scheduled arrival at 5:36pm, and arriving in a different terminal than the Finnair flight.  She wasn't going to make it.

Time for the telephone call scramble.  I got hold of June at Beeline Travel  in Raleigh, who organized all the tickets for the trip.  She literally spent several hours with the airlines and had good and bad news.  Avione could get on a later flight but, because of the way the tickets were written, we would have to buy another ticket.  And that would be another $1500.00.

As they say, "it is what it is", so we went about purchasing it.  An hour later, June called me back and said that Delta would absorb the cost of the new ticket, and it would cost us nothing.  Phew!

So Avione was on a 10:55pm flight through Amsterdam and would arrive at 5:30pm the next day.  We were arriving at 9am, well before Avione.  We would handle Avione's arrival detailsl when we arrived in Finland the next morning.

    Arrival:  Wednesday, August 1

After an eight hour flight, we landed in Helsinki.  It was 9:15am.  Paul Limmer had a message on his phone.  It was from Ms. Allgood, Avione's mother.  Avione had missed the flight!  Apparently it took 5 hours to get Avione's luggage from her flight from Las Vegas and it missed the connection .  The airlines put her on a flight the next day and she would arrive at 1:05pm on Thursday.  Fortunately, Avione has a relative in New York and was able to stay with him on Wednesday night.

So off to Kuortane.  We hired the equivalent of a taxi to take us there.  It's really a small-sized high-end bus which seats 14.  It's over 200 miles from Helsinki to Kuortane, about the equivalent of going from New York to Washington, DC.  It comes with a relatively healthy price tag, but it was all budgeted.

It took us about four hours to get there which included a short lunch break.  Kuortane is almost due north of Helsinki in the middle of the forest.  We finally arrived about 2:15pm, got our rooms, then had a bite to eat.  We were all exhausted, but excited nonetheless.    The rooms are actually apartments, equipped with a full kitchen, washer-dryer and sauna.  They are modern and quite nice, and the plan we had included all meals.

It's hard to describe the Kuortane Sports resort.  There is no equivalent in the U.S.  It is a training center for virtually all sports' disciplines.  There is a gymnastics building, an indoor 200m track with volleyball and basketball courts in the center, an ice rink, a golf building, natatorium, tennis courts, soccer fields, Finnish baseball fields, outdoor track seating 1200, and more.  And it's all on a large lake which offers fishing, canoeing, kayaking and, of course, swimming. Here is the web site (The web site does not do the place justice).

Soon after we had our "snack", the athletes got some exercise: exercise in the form of frisbee golf, let by Finnish national javelin coach Kari Ihalainen.  Kari had run the clinic in October in Chapel Hill with Jeff Gorski.  Kourtane is his home base.

According to Jeff , Kari is the Tiger Woods of frisbee golf.  We all played for about 1 1/2 hours.  The final "hole" was the shot circle at the outdoor track.  From there, the "drill" was to throw the frisbee for distance.  (I was wondering what kind of javelin training this was?). Kari arranged for go bowling after dinner.  We were tired but accepted.  We had a great time.

Training - Day 1:  Thursday, August 2

After breakfast, we headed to the indoor track.  Now for some serious javelin training!

That morning we met Kimmo Kinnunen, the 1991 IAAF World Champion who was to be our coach for the week.  Kari was off to London that afternoon to coach the Finnish team at the Olympics so Kimmo would be with us the entire time.

Kimmo is an impressive guy.  Still rock-solid at age 44, he is the son of 1968 Olympic silver medallist in the javelin (of course)  Jorma Kinnunen.  And Kimmo's son is one of Finland's leading junior-age athletes. 

After we shook his hand we had to check our hands for broken bones.  His grip is vice-like.

So the serious javelin training was beginning.  But if that was the case, why were Kari an Kimmo setting up field hockey nets?  That's because the athletes were about to play field hockey!  Which they did for about an hour.  And it was intense. 

Finally they broke out the javelins and the athletes began to throw.   They threw  "all out" using the javelin runway in the gym.  They threw against a wall which was covered with large hanging drapes so as to absorb the javelin strikes.  After an hour of that and deep muscle massage by Kimmo for each athlete, they "warmed down" with a game of volleyball.  Now it was 1pm and lunch  time.

Meanwhile, we had dispersed the "taxi" to Helsinki and the  almost 500 mile round trip to pick Avione.  The driver had all the details and we put our faith in the airlines and the taxi driver that Avione would be delivered safely.

After lunch, Kimmo drove Paul, Joy and I the one mile to the village of Kuortane.  It has two grocery stores, two pizza shops and post office and no stop light.  We purchase some soap and a few other items (soap in the rooms is in liquid form).

The afternoon drills began at 4:30pm and were at the outdoor track.  Now for some serious javelin training! The first drill was .... team handball.  What's going on here?
We soon learned that an integral part of the Finnish philosophy is game playing.  It helps with coordination and other aspects indirectly associated with throwing the javelin.  And it makes training fun.

It's now about 5pm, the kids are still playing team handball, and we (Joy, Paul and me) decide to go to the reception center to greet Avione when she arrives.  We got there 5 minutes later and waited.  We figured she should get to the center by 6 or 6:15.  After 6:15, we'd enact "Plan B" as we had no way of knowing if she had even arrived or been met successfully. By 6:30pm there was no Avione.  It was time to panic.

Paul  went to the front desk to see if they could contact the taxi driver.  The receptionist said, "Are you looking for for Avione Allgood".  Paul said, "Yes".   "Oh, she checked in at about 5pm".  We missed her by 5 minutes! So all was well with the world.  We found Avione and she joined the group.

We went back to the track at about 6:45pm and the kids were throwing.  I told Kimmo that dinner ended at 7pm and they had to get back to the restaurant or they weren't going to be able to eat (or we'd have to buy them dinner).  Kimmo said, "No.  We must continue to train".  He sent four of the kids to do some weight training and left two back with him to do some more work on their technique.

The adults got back the hotel to have dinner.  I resolved that we would have to buy dinner for the kids later on.  Now it's 7:45pm and, to my surprise,  the dining room is still open.  And in walk the kids.  They got to eat dinner as planned (along with about 50 figure skaters who were in  training at the facility's  ice rink).
We spent a lot of time with Kimmo after dinner.   Apparently Finns like to throw stuff besides the javelin.  He happened to know the names and distances of the Finnish record holders in the baseball throw, golf throw, and wooden match throw.  The wooden match throw record is around 34 meters (over 100 feet).   He actually purchased some matches and will show us how it's done tomorrow.

We told him that we did some research and the actual world record holder in the wooden match throw is the German javelinist  Uwe Hahn.  He disagreed vehemently - something about the fact that the wooden match throw sectors the Germans use is not set up according to regulation.   (Maybe there's an International Wooden Match Throw Federation or, at least, a Finnish Wooden Match Throw Federation.  That would not surprise me as Finland is the home of the World Air Guitar Championship as well as the International Wife Carrying Championship.  The winner of that event wins the equivalent of the wife's weight in beer).

I asked Kimmo if his grandfather was also a javelin thrower.  He said that his grandfather was killed fighting the Russians during World War II.  His grandmother was pregnant with his father when his grandfather died.  So neither Kimmo nor his father knew Kimmo's grandfather.  (I don't think we appreciate the suffering that affected all of Europe during World War II).

We retired to the large dining room/sports bar and watched the Olympics on the big screen TV.  The kids went canoeing in the lake and then played some basketball (it doesn't get dark until 11pm).  They came back in for pizza and we watched some swimming and gymnastics.  Track starts tomorrow!  And so does more training.   (I wonder what kind of games are in store for Friday).