Finland_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics
Finland at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Sporting event delegation
Finland competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, from 27 July to 12 August 2012. The nation has competed at every Summer Olympic Games since its official debut in 1908. The Finnish Olympic Committee (Finnish: Suomen Olympiakomitea, SO) sent a total of 56 athletes to the Games, 29 men and 27 women, to compete in 14 sports. There was only a single competitor in artistic gymnastics, taekwondo, weightlifting and tennis.
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Notable Finnish athletes included the defending champion Satu Mäkelä-Nummela in women's trap shooting, and Olympic bronze medalist Tero Pitkämäki in men's javelin throw. Badminton player Anu Nieminen, and swimmer Hanna-Maria Seppälä, who finished fourth in the women's freestyle event, made their fourth Olympic appearance as the most experienced athletes. Seppälä also became Finland's first female flag bearer at the Summer Olympics' opening ceremony (in the Winter Olympics, Marja-Liisa Kirvesniemi had carried the Finnish flag in 1994).
Suomen Olympiakomitea (SO) set a goal of three medals, with at least one gold medal and six point positions in eighth-place finish, to be targeted in the medal standings.[1] At the end of the Games, Finland already had three medals, but reached beyond the medal target by a single point.
Finland, however, left London with two silvers and one bronze medal in sailing and athletics, failing to win a gold medal for the second time in Summer Olympic history since 2004. Antti Ruuskanen only received his silver medal in 2017, due to doping by the original silver medalist Oleksandr Pyatnytsya from Ukraine. Several Finnish athletes who reached finals missed out on the medal standings including Pitkämäki, and taekwondo jin Suvi Mikkonen.
