Skip to main content

3234 - Ahlainen, Satakunta, Finland

I great card of ski jumping facilities in Lahti. The sender, seeing I was from near Calgary, mentioned he remembered watched the Calgary Olympics in 1988. The Finns had high hopes for ski jumper, Matti Nykänen. Nykänen won 4 gold medals, and one silver medals at the Sarajevo (1984) Olympics and Calgary (1988) Olympics.

Nykänen was married six times. His first wife was a 'sausage heiress" named Mervi Tapola. They were married in 2001; divorced in 2003; and remarried in 2004 only to finally divorce again in 2010, after Tapola's 15 request for a divorce. The marriage was unhealthy and because they were both famous, in the news.  Nykänen assaulted Tapola in 2000 and he was given a suspended sentence. While on probation he abused her again. He was sent to prison for four months. When he was released, he stabbed a man at a pizza restaurant. On Christmas Day in 2009, he assaulted he wife with a knife and tried to throttle her with a bathrobe belt. He was arrested but the charges were dropped a few days later for insufficient evidence. Nykänen did spend 16 more months in prison for grievous bodily harm on his wife. In 2004 he was sentence to 26 months in prison for attempted manslaughter on a family friend. 

Nykänen also became a singer after his ski jumping career ended. He won a golden record in Finland for his first album, but his next one didn't do well. Financial trouble caused him to work as a stripper for a short time, before making a comeback, releasing a third studio album

Nykänen died in 2019 from pancreatitis and pneumonia. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

3584 - Blaine, Minnesota, United States of America

The sender was in Las Vegas recently and bought this card from The Mob Museum. The Mob Museum, officially known as the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, is located in downtown Las Vegas. It open in 2012. It features artifacts, stories, and the history of organized crime in the United States, but also the actions and initiatives by law enforcement to prevent such crimes.  The museum is found at the former Las Vegas Post Office and Courthouse, which was built in 1933.  The quote on this card was from John Gotti. John Gotti (1940-2002) was the mafioso and boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. After ordering the killing of Gambino boss Paul Catellano in 1985, he took over the family and led what was the United States' most powerful crime syndicate. He was known as The Teflon Don  after three high profile trials in the 1980s resulted in acquittals. Later it was revealed that the trials had been tainted by jury tampering, juror misconduct, and...

3564 - Kassel, Hesse, Germany

A wonderful message on this card that translates to to those wh o can wait, everything comes with time.

2346 - Iwate, Iwate, Japan

Keita is a junior high science teacher in Iwate  岩手町. He sent me a photo of the Tokyo Sky Tower during a fireworks display. The Tokyo Sky Tower is a broadcasting and observation tower in Simide, a special ward in the Tokyo Metropolis. It became the tallest structure in Japan in 2010. In 2011, when it was completed at a height of 634 meters, it became the tallest tower in the world, and the second tallest structure in the world, after Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE.