Mikko Kolehmainen
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Mikko Yrjö Ilmari Kolehmainen (born 18 August 1964 in Mikkeli) is a Finnish canoe sprinter who competed from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. Competing in four Summer Olympics, he won the gold medal in the K-1 500 m event at Barcelona in 1992.[1] Kolehmainen's victory was Finland's only gold medal at those games.
By now established as Finland's strongest kayak sprinter, he concentrated in the K-1 500 m discipline. Although a respected competitor at international regattas he never really threatened the top paddlers for the major prizes. At the 1991 World Championships in Paris he finished a creditable seventh.
It was therefore a major shock when, at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, he won the K-1 500 m gold medal. His victory over reigning champion Zsolt Gyulay of Hungary gave Finland their only gold medal of an otherwise disappointing Games.
A year later he showed that his Barcelona performance was no fluke by winning the world championship K-1 500 m title in Copenhagen. At his farewell Olympics, in Atlanta in 1996 he finished in seventh place, and carried the flag at the opening ceremony.
References
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External links
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- Pages with script errors
- 1964 births
- Living people
- Sportspeople from Mikkeli
- Canoeists at the 1984 Summer Olympics
- Canoeists at the 1988 Summer Olympics
- Canoeists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- Canoeists at the 1996 Summer Olympics
- Finnish male canoeists
- Olympic canoeists for Finland
- Olympic gold medalists for Finland
- Olympic medalists in canoeing
- ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships medalists in kayak
- Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- 20th-century Finnish sportsmen