| Martti Tolamo | |
| Birth Name: | Martti Leo Topelius |
| Nationality: | Finnish |
| Birth Date: | 21 February 1907 |
| Height: | 1.84m (06.04feet) |
| Weight: | 76kg (168lb) |
| Pb: | Pentathlon: 4011 (1930) Long jump: 7.51 (1934) |
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 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] 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.[5]
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 killed in action in 1940.[6]