Top international skiers are needed for the Ruka Suomen Cup skis. According to Hannu Koivusalo, it would violate the basic idea of the competition series.
Joel Sippola,
Emma Jump
Ruka was skied this weekend for the Finnish Cup and next week for the World Cup. Arsi Ruuskanen expressed last weekend in connection with the Olos cannon competitions that he would be happy to qualify foreign skiers for the Suomen Cup.
Currently, foreign skiers who either represent a Finnish association member club or live in Finland can participate in national competitions in Finland.
For example, the national skiing teams of Germany and Italy have competed and trained in Finland before the Ruka World Cup. Many would like to compete already in connection with Ruka’s Finnish Cup and get a feel for Ruka’s World Cup opening.
– I would think that it would be very good for everyone. For sure, if a foreigner comes there, at least he won’t stop at twenty. Surely there would be attractive men there, Ruuskanen stated.
Head coach of the Finnish national team Teemu Pasanen would also give the green light to the participation of foreign skiers in Ruka’s Suomen Cup.
– Quite a lot of people from this early season would probably like to ski there and get training, and it probably wouldn’t be a bad thing for our top skiers either, Pasanen previously told Urheilu.
Would kill the idea
Urheilu asked the director of the Suomen Cup about it in Ruka Hannu from Koivusalo. The Ruka Suomen Cup could be held as a FIS competition, but according to Koivusalo, it is a challenging equation.
Koivusalo says that there are many international ski competitions in cross-country skiing. The purpose of the Suomen Cup is to give visibility to those Finnish national skiers who are otherwise not on display during the season.
In Ruka’s Suomen Cup, sprints were contested on Saturday and 20 km joint start races on Sunday in freestyle skiing.
– The Finnish Cup has started to raise the group behind the national top. The fact that several dozen or even hundreds of foreign skiers would come here would destroy the idea why the Suomen cup was created.
Koivusalo understands, for example, the Finnish coaching leadership’s view that tough international competitions are needed. According to him, it would be difficult to organize the Finnish Cup if, in addition to all Finnish skiers, there were several international guests.
Koivusalo reminds that it is also a TV product.
– If everyone has to be included, it would be a big challenge. If there are, for example, 250 skiers in the intermediate start race, the TV would probably come on when the first hundred have left.
– If we go by the FIS points, the Finnish skiers, for whom the system was created in the big picture, will probably start at the top.