Jari Porttila

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Jari Porttila (born on February 2, 1960 in Helsinki) is a Finnish sports journalist, columnist and reporter who works for television channel MTV3. He has also done commentating and sportsreading jobs. Before MTV3 he worked for newspapers Uusi Suomi and Iltalehti.

From 1990s to 2000s Porttila worked as a sportsreader in Tulosruutu, a sports news program on MTV3, and occasionally as a live-by-live commentator. Nowadays Porttila is mainly known for his columns, in which he speaks out in a high-spirited way about the events in the world of sports. He has many contacts in the inner circle of sports. He focuses usually on skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined, Formula One and ice hockey, but is able to commentate on almost everything in sports.

One of the main moments in Porttila's career happened in 1984 when Finnish long distance runner Martti Vainio failed in doping-test. Porttila expressed the involvement of janitor Alpo Nyrönen to the doping case, and wrote: "Some people believe in God, some people believe in Santa Claus, but I believe in Martti Vainio". The other memorable moment happened in 1999, during the football Euro 2000 qualification match between Finland and Turkey in Helsinki Olympic Stadium. A group of Kurdish people made a pitch invasion in the closing minutes of the first half and the game was suspended. Porttila was reporting live from the field with his microphone and made interviews.