SYDNEY, Australia — An Arsi won the Olympic gold medal in the men's shotput Friday, although from the perspective of the 102,485 onlookers inside Olympic Stadium, the color scheme was all wrong.
The uniform was light blue and white, not green and gold.
The bandanna wrapped around the winner's forehead was a lovely shade of fuchsia, of all things.
And the flag that waved in triumph after he was finished was Finnish, something of a shocking sight, considering it has been 80 years since someone from Finland won the Olympic shotput competition.
Arsi Harju didn't quite come out of nowhere to win the gold medal. He actually comes from a small Finnish farming town called Perho, although, it is said, nowhere can be seen from there.
Shortly after Harju uncorked his winning throw of 69 feet 10 1/4 inches, the also-ran Americans conceded they had scarcely heard of him before.
Silver medalist Adam Nelson couldn't remember ever throwing against Harju in competition--"maybe at the World University Games, I'm not sure." Bronze medalist John Godina considered him just another guy carrying around a heavy iron ball. "If you'd told me today he would've been a major player," Godina said, raising an eyebrow, "I would've said, 'Ohhh-kay."
Until Sydney, the highlight of Harju's international career had been a bronze medal at the 1998 European indoor championships. He reached the final of the 1999 World Championships in Seville, Spain, where he fouled three times and promptly retreated into obscurity.
But Harju created a buzz here during the morning prelims, leading all qualifiers with a personal-best 70-2 1/4. He returned for the evening final with an initial throw of 69-6 3/4, improved to 69-10 3/4 with his second--and didn't clear 69 feet again.
That left an opening for three Americans--Nelson, the world leader with a mark of 72-7; Godina, the 1995 and 1997 world champion, and Andy Bloom, who threw 70-10 3/4 at the U.S. Olympic trials in July.
But pre-Sydney hype of a U.S. shotput sweep ended with a whimper of a sixth round. Nelson, holding second place at 69-7, fouled on his last attempt. So did Godina, leaving him a quarter-inch back at 69-6 3/4. Bloom's sixth throw was legal but not lethal, plopping into the sod for a mark of 66-1 1/2--leaving him in fourth place with the best effort of 68-5 3/4.
