The Olympic Committee is in the toughest spin in its history, and there is no end in sight for this crisis. Of course, there is a reason for everything, writes Pekka Holopainen of Urheilu.
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
Since success in elite sports is increasingly based on the acquisition, analysis and utilization of data, the current state of the Finnish Olympic Committee should also be opened with data.
The Olympic Games in Paris produced a historic result of zero medals, which was known to be coming sooner or later at the current rate. Some, albeit a very small part, of the competition athletes heavily criticized the operational activities of the committee’s employees during the games.
After the Games, the director and deputy director of the elite sports unit were tied to the stake. Matti Heikkinen and Leena Paavolainen careers in the unit ended.
While four years ago the chairmanship of the Olympic Committee was interested in fifty very promising and famous candidates, now only one candidate has registered his name a good month before the election.
The loss of reputation is frightening, and the desperate capsizing of the life raft in an autumn storm is apparently of no interest.
On Tuesday, the Olympic Committee announced extensive collective bargaining negotiations, which may end with about ten employees in the committee. On Wednesday, the commercial director of the committee announced his departure.
According to the so-called public secret, the relations with the officials of the Ministry of Education and Culture, which finances approximately 70 percent of the committee’s activities, are at a standstill. The level of public funding, which is literally vital to the Olympic Committee, will drop significantly in the next few years.
The Olympic Committee announced on Tuesday that it would move to the Olympic Stadium and wanted the entire Finnish sports family to join them. In many sports organizations, this is really not a common issue.
The Olympic Committee’s alley running is like a sports reality show, a very rare art form in Finland.
Constantly yt procedures
Since 2017, the fourth yt negotiations are now underway. The strategy has been renewed three times, and roughly every leader has gone for a change to suit the Olympic symbolism every four years or so.
This is the gigantic organization whose sports promotion sector was supposed to make Finland an extremely mobile nation and a very successful top sports country in relation to the population of top sports experts.
However, here we are.
At the same time, the control countries that protected their top sports from other sweat-inducing activities with two fire doors have fled far into the horizon when it comes to international success.
Of course, there are other reasons for the gap, but the correlation truly speaks for autonomous elite sports. The upper level must seek justification for its existence from the grassroots level, which owns the operation. In Finland, the experience of many at the club or association level is different.
Philosopher’s Stone Grinders
The philosopher’s stone has now been polished by six well-known sports influencers, i.e. docents Kati Lehtonena professor by Karl-Erik Michelsenworking life professor Sami Itanincoach Anu Nieminencoach Valentin Kononen and ex-sports director Jarmo Mäkelän – a sextet that has already been able to present their ideas even in the Ministry of Education and Culture.
Time will tell if the ideas get flesh around the bones.
Those who know the Finnish sports system’s capacity for renewal and readiness for change haven’t quite started holding their breath yet.
In the same robe
The most radical proposal is to replace the top sports unit with a group of experts coming under the ministry, to which sports people who are untainted in all respects, in terms of their own favoritism, sports political past, grasping for money and power, and so on, are applied for. A flashlight is not enough as the only aid in this recruitment.
The new group would be small and cost-effective, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel here either.
Swimming coach emeritus Esa Sievinen recently recalled how he lobbied the Olympic Committee for training money for his son. Director of coaching of the Olympic Committee Heikki Kantola appeared from time to time at Nummela’s swimming hall and called the young man Jani Sievinen hard training sets. After that it went thumbs up or down, usually up.
Heikki Kantola was the top sports unit and an impartial evaluator in the same robe.