The very stripped-down model of national team activity brought the best result in skiing for years. That’s a good thing, because the Ski Association’s downhill cycle doesn’t promise any better in the future, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
Hope lived until the end, but on Tuesday of last week, the Accounting Board of the Ministry of Labor and the Economy came to a conclusion. Hiihtoliitto ry’s auditors have already received a cold view from the auditors, and the preferential recording of media income in the financial statements, which showed creative thinking, was considered an inappropriate procedure by the industry’s stern board institution.
When the outgoing chairman Markku Haapasalmi and executive director Ismo Hämäläinen even in November they relied on a more optimistic view, to the disadvantage of the Hiihtoliitto group for the fiscal year June 1, 2022-31. of October 2023 was estimated at 600,000–700,000 euros.
Saturday night then undressed masks: the truth is at the group level a total of about 1.9 million euros, which is probably a record level in the entire history of Finnish sports organizations. The board’s decision was, of course, a big disappointment for the outgoing chairman, who wanted to leave a different kind of last memory of himself to the people of the organization.
History has been made
History has also been made in the Skiing Federation in that the list of those who refused to run for the presidency is longer and more famous than those who accepted the race.
According to the best current information, either a member of the association’s board of directors will be elected as the new chairman in connection with the Äänekoski WC on the weekend Sirpa Korkatti or a long-term break from skiing, ex-sport manager of skiing who has seen everything and ex-CEO of the association Jari Piirainen.
If the latter would end up being chosen, at least it should not be a matter of seawater resistance. The list of those willing was even shorter and the coffers even more empty when the association was looking for a CEO after the Lahti doping disaster in 2001.
When Piirainen still at the beginning of the last decade had to – after being found not guilty – explain his Skiing Federation twists and turns all the way to the courtroom, the return to the candidate game at this level can be considered a big surprise and the love for the sport tested and genuine.
You can get an empty one without asking
Already last spring, the A national team voted with their feet Iivo Niskanen, because he stated after seeing the offered camping package that he would get an empty one without asking. Although the hefty signing bonus of the recent media contract brings relief to the cash situation in the spring, it is clear that due to the loss figures mentioned above and weak partnership sales, the sports team coaches hardly have to sell the athletes even the same as last spring. After a season with no value competition, a very expensive World Championship season culminating in Norway awaits the federation.
However, it so happened that the international competition season proved this Model Cajanderin works for Finnish skiers. Six athletes reached the podium in the individual competitions of the World Cup, and the overall result would have been even better without Iivo Niskanen and Krista Pärmäkoski multifactorial problems.
A determined couple
Johanna Matintalo and Lauri Vuorinen rose to the international top, and the couple directly embodied how to react decisively and independently to the union’s poverty of resources. The couple settled in Vuokatti and built a very high-quality training routine in an environment that is the closest to the top of the world in Finnish terms. A very hard class top sports performance.
The ski association’s lack of money could be a byproduct of a significant coaching improvement for the boys. Of course, you need to camp abroad, but a lot of camping means that the athlete is constantly preparing for or recovering from a camp, often with health on a knife’s edge.
If, for one reason or another, the coaching can’t, as it can’t, commit the entire A national team with its superstars to a rich and high-quality camp program, why build compromises?
If once almost complete freedom brought the best result in years.