Spearheaded by Jyrki Rantanen, the inaugural Finnish Highland Games National Championships were held over the weekend, with Janne Hartikainen dominating the the men’s open class.


Janne Hartikainen, men’s open class winner at the 2012 Finnish Highland Games National Championships, on the Braemer stone.  IronMind® | Photo by United Strongmen®/Piia Aaltokoski.


Rantanen filed this report with IronMind:

2012 Finnish Highland Games National Championships
by Jyrki Rantanen

We just had the first ever Highland Games nationals in Hämeenlinna, Finland and at the end of the day we had some familiar people on top of each class.

In men´s open division we had Janne Hartikainen dominating the day with four out of five event wins and second place in the caber toss.  The caber toss was won by Timo Nissinen, who is our representative to Hungary next weekend as Janne is going to France the week after and earned the spot to IHGF Amateur Worlds [team championships].  Reading Francis Brebner´s comments some days ago I have to say I agree that I´m waiting to see Janne´s performances in Bressuire.  The third spot went to the shot putter Yrjö Hämäläinen.

The masters class was won by World’s Strongest Man winner Janne Virtanen and the ladies classes were dominated by Rolling Thunder world record holder Jaana Tanner (open class) and her sister Leena Nurminen (masters class).

So, at the end of the day we had four new Finnish champions and new nationals records for the next ones to aim for.


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