Esa-Pekka Mattila

I've raced internationally since 2005, with three Paralympic Games (London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020) and World and European Championship selections throughout. My 100 m personal best is 14.08 seconds.

My best results include bronze in the 100 m at the 2021 European Championships in Bydgoszcz, eighth at the 2023 World Championships in Paris, fifth at the 2024 World Championships in Kobe and seventh at the 2025 World Championships in New Delhi. I've been in the top 8 of the world since 2023 and staying there across separate championship cycles has been the better achievement than any single result.

I train under Leo-Pekka Tähti, five-time Paralympic champion and the former 100 m T54 world record holder. Right now we're aiming at my 100 m time under 14.00 seconds and a medal place at the 2027 World Championships.

I chair the Athletes' Commission of the Finnish Olympic Committee and sit on the Olympic Committee's board. The work is mostly structural: making athlete representation a substantive voice in decision-making rather than a formality. I helped build the Finnish Paralympic Committee's Athletes' Commission from the ground up and chaired it until autumn 2024. Today I hold board roles across Finnish sports and the disability sector, where an athlete's perspective and a business-and-economics lens meet institutional decisions.

Earlier, I served as Secretary General of KY, the Association of Aalto University Business Students. In practice the role was executive director: responsibility for the office and the finances, nine employees, an annually elected board, and an annual budget over €500,000. It's where I learned that advocacy without operational credibility doesn't move anything.

I'm completing a master's in Business Law with economics as a minor, and I do advisory work in wheelchair and assistive technology. Based in Espoo. I write, in Finnish and English, mostly about sport, governance, and the systems around both.