- Status: Active
- Height: ~180cm (5’11)
- Weight: ~68kg (150lbs)
- Age: 26
- Birthday: June 11, 1998
- Nationality: Finnish
- Events: Pole vault
- Personal Bests:
- Pole vault: 4.85m
Wilma Murto Honours
- 2023 World Championships Bronze in the pole vault
- 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships
- National Champion x 5
- World U20 Record Holder (4.71m)
Wilma Murto Early Life and Career
Wilma Anna Helena Murto is a rising star in the women’s pole vault. She’s the current World Record holder in the women’s U20 pole vault record, having jumped 4.71 meters as an 18-year-old.
Murto grew up in the small town of Salo in Southwest Finland, where her family had a cattle farm with about 200 animals. She had an early start in athletics, starting around the age of four, and was born into an active family. Her father Matti used to high jump and run while her cousin Lida is a professional volleyball player. Her grandmother is the cousin of Voitto Hellsten, who won bronze in the 400-meter at the 1956 Olympics.
Although Murto tried many events when she was young, she quickly settled on the pole vault as her primary event. She started training for the event when she was nine years old and met her current coach, Jarno Koivunen. Koivunen is the former Finnish indoor national champion in the event from 2001.
The earliest result that appears on Murto’s World Athletics bio page is a jump of 2.90 meters from 2011, shortly after she turned 13 years old. In an interview with World Athletics, she said,
“I was a fearless kid, climbing trees and falling out of places. The extreme part of pole vault got me hooked.”
Unfortunately, pole vault facilities were limited in Murto’s town, so her mother, Sari, would sometimes drive her 500 kilometers weekly for her training. Her mother was also the coach of their local club, the Salon Vilpas.
At the age of 16, Murto moved to Turku for school and to be closer to her coach. She would progress in the event quickly. By the age of 16, she was already clearing over four meters.
The next year, she would increase her personal best to 4.45 meters, but unfortunately, would no height in the final of the European Junior Championships. Although disappointing, she would have plenty of international competition opportunities ahead of her.
In January 2016, before her 18th birthday, she would set a world junior U20 record of 4.71 meters at the Zweibrücken Hallenstürmer-Cup in Germany, winning the event.
Over the summer, she would appear in her first Diamond League meeting, the Roma Golden Gala. She would also finish seventh at the European Championships with a jump of 4.45 meters.
Murto would end the year with a third-place finish at the World U20 championships and a 13th-place finish in her qualifying section of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Continued Success
Muro would see continued success nationally and internationally over the next several years, although she wouldn’t better her personal best again until 2021. In 2018, she won her first Finnish Championship with a jump of 4.60 meters. She would go on to win the event four more times (as of May 2025).
She qualified for the Olympics for the second time in 2021, improving on her placing from 2016 with a jump of 4.50 meters, enough to capture fifth. Near the end of the summer, on August 29, she jumped 4.72 meters in Tampere for a new personal best. Her next personal best came at the 2022 European Championships almost a year later when she cleared 4.85 meters in Munich, taking home gold.
This result beat the European Championship record. She also improved the Finnish record three times during the competition.
In 2023, Murto jumped 4.80 meters at the European Indoor Championships to take home gold in Istanbul.
Later that year, she jumped 4.80 meters again to take home the victory at the London Athletics Diamond League event.
She would take this momentum into the World Championships in Budapest, clearing 4.80 meters yet again to take home bronze.
In 2024, Murto would finish sixth at the Olympic Games, but her jump of 4.70 meters was 20 centimeters higher than when she finished fifth three years prior.
Wilma Murto Personal Life and Other Facts
Murto tried other events when she was younger before settling into the pole vault full time. She has run 7.78 seconds in the 60-meter and 12.34 seconds in the 100-meter. She also high jumped 1.63 meters when she was 15.
Murto was dating Jaakko Linkoheimo, a physical education teacher from Helsinki, but they appear to have since broken up.
Murto started studying at the Turku University of Applied Sciences in 2021, specializing in journalism and communications.
After winning the European Championships, Murto said in an interview, “It’s a pretty strange feeling. Nowadays, for example, people come up to congratulate me in the checkout line at the store. But it’s really fun.” [Translated from Finnish]
FAQS | Murto Wilma
How Tall is Wilma Murto? | Wilma Murto Height
Wilma Murto is roughly 180 centimeters tall (5’11”), but we couldn’t find an official listing of her height.
Who was Wilma Murto Dating? | Wilma Murto Linnan Juhlat 2023
Wilma Murto has appeared with her former partner Jaakko Linkoheimo publicly at competitions, but the couple seems to have broken up.
What is Wilma Murto’s Personal Best? | Ennätys
Wilma Murto has a personal best of 4.85 meters in the pole vault.