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Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Birth name | Martti Leo Topelius | ||||||||||||||||||||
Nationality | Finnish | ||||||||||||||||||||
Born | 21 February 1907 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 14 March 1940 33) | (aged||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 1.84 m (6 ft 0 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 76 kg (168 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||
Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||||
Personal best(s) | Pentathlon: 4011 (1930) Long jump: 7.51 (1934) | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Martti Leo Tolamo (born Topelius; 21 February 1907 – 14 March 1940) was a Finnish athlete. He competed in the Olympic Games as a decathlete and a long jumper; his other strong event was the non-Olympic pentathlon, in which he broke the unofficial world record in 1930 and won two medals, including a gold, at the International University Games.
At the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, Tolamo competed in the decathlon, placing 16th. [1] The following year he exceeded the Finnish long jump record with a jump of 7.42 m, but due to wind assistance that record could not be ratified. [2]
At the 1930 Finnish Championships at Tampere he won the pentathlon with 4011 points, an unofficial world record. [2] He also triumphed at that year's International University Games, scoring 3979 points to secure gold ahead of Latvia's Jānis Dimza. [3] Tolamo's world record was broken the following year by compatriot javelin thrower Matti Sippala; [2] however, with modern scoring tables Tolamo's score would have remained the record, and it eventually re-emerged as a national pentathlon best, only broken in 2007. [4]
Tolamo legitimately broke the Finnish long jump record in 1933 in a dual meet between Finland and Norway, jumping 7.46 m. [2] [5] At that year's International University Games he won silver in the long jump and bronze in the pentathlon. [3] He broke his own national long jump record in September 1934, in another dual meet (between Finland and Germany); he jumped 7.51 m and defeated both Wilhelm Leichum, who had won the European championship the previous week, and future Olympic silver medalist Luz Long. [2] That jump remained the Finnish record until 1954, when Jorma Valkama broke it. [6]
Tolamo returned to the Olympics in 1936, competing in both the decathlon and the long jump. [1] He failed to make the final in the long jump and did not finish in the decathlon. [1]
He was wounded in action in March 1940 and died in war hospital five days later. [7]