This article is taken from the August-September 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

The World Athletics Championships are 40 years old this August. Helsinki was the perfect inaugural host back in 1983, free from superpower politics and the boycotts which tarnished both the Moscow and L.A. Olympics in 1980 and 1984 respectively, and with crowds which knew and loved the sport. 

Carl Lewis won three golds and was labelled “Superman” by L’Équipe; Edwin Moses and Daley Thompson continued to dominate their events; and, less palatably with all we now know about state-sponsored doping, Eastern bloc women won every track event up to 800m and every field event bar the javelin.

The javelin was Finland’s sacred event, rooted in the country’s endless forests where every child could grow up hurling branches. Finnish men had won five Olympic golds over the years — the stadium’s tower was exactly the same height as the distance Matti Järvinen had thrown for victory in 1932 — but now the country’s hopes were on the female shoulders of 22-year-old Tiina Lillak. 

She was world record holder, national heroine, and Finland’s last chance of a home gold. In the months before the championships she’d been interviewed so often that eventually she’d hightailed it to a secret retreat in one of those very forests, but now the attention was more intense than ever. tiina, shrieked a headline on the day of the final: today is your day!

Up against her was Britain’s Fatima Whitbread, coached by her adoptive mother, Margaret, who had rescued her from a childhood of abandonment as a baby, foster homes, and sexual abuse. “That was amazing, the best thing that happened, to be a part of a family,” Fatima said. But Margaret’s role as coach was no less important than that of mother. Fatima again: “Sport gave me a sense of freedom, a sense of achievement that here was something I was good at. I got validation from my teachers and friends, and started to realise life was a bit more positive. I realised that this could be my way out.”

Tiina and Fatima were studies in opposites

Tiina and Fatima were studies in opposites: one tall, blonde and willowy, the other shorter, dark and muscular. They would also approach the competition in very different ways, with Tiina easing herself gently into the series of six throws and Fatima going for broke from the very start. 

As a schoolchild Fatima had been inspired by the tale of Atalanta, who could throw a spear further than any man could shoot an arrow, and she takes her opening throw as though she too is a warrior goddess: carrying the javelin high, screaming as she launches it into the air, and dancing with delight when the mark comes up. 69.14: the gauntlet well and truly thrown down. 

In contrast, Tiina is tentative: slower on the runway and in her arm speed alike, and not even bothering to remove her warm-up leggings. 67.34: enough for second, a good solid base on which to build, but no more than that. 

Over the next four rounds it’s just the two of them, with no-one else getting close. Fatima fouls twice and throws short twice: the best Tiina can manage is 67.46 in the fifth round, only 12cm up on her opener. This is Fatima’s strategy, to try and force her rival into tensing up and trying too hard, and with only one round left it seems to be working perfectly.

Fatima fouls on her final throw. Nothing she can do now except wait, watch and pray. Tiina, pacing back and forth to keep the pressure at bay, calls to mind the words of her coach Kalevi Härkönen — “remember, you get six throws out there” — and adds a thought of her own: “There’s no way to escape this place if I get second.”

She goes to the runway. Her body language is transformed: leggings long since shed, teeth gritted as she jabs the air with her spear, her resolve a living thing. we heart tiina, says a banner in the stands behind her. Blue and white flags flutter all around. The distillation of a life’s preparation and yearning into a single moment: the quick where you have it or you don’t. 

Into her approach run, fast and laser-focused. The crossover strides to get into position and the savage beauty of the release: front leg down and planted, body whipping and uncoiling from legs to hips to back to chest to shoulder to arm, javelin quivering and humming as it flies high above the stadium’s roofline. Tens of thousands of voices roar it on and hold it aloft, the storm of a nation’s desire battling gravity itself. The javelin climbs, glides, falls, falls, falls … all the way to the 70-metre mark and beyond. 

Victory. Earthquake. Bedlam. Amidst the tumult Tiina sets off round the track at a lick which would have given even Lewis a run for his money. 

Maailmanmestari, flashes the TV screen in yellow letters.

Maailmanmestari: World champion. Not just Tiina, perhaps, but all Finland — a talented, humble and modest young woman in whose triumph an entire nation can see itself reflected.

At the trackside, Fatima’s body shakes with tears as she buries herself in Margaret’s embrace. Her time will come: three years from now she’ll become European champion and world record holder, and a year after that she’ll succeed Tiina as world champion. But for now she is the solo agony to a collective ecstasy, valiant loser to a glorious winner, and her silver medal is little solace on a wonderful championships’ most golden day.