The combined may be dropped from the 2030 Winter Olympics sport selection. Petter Kukkonen believes that in addition to the issue of equality, money is behind the questioning of the status of the species.
– My dream is to get to the Olympics. Even if it doesn’t happen, motivation may suffer. There would be no such spark to train anymore if not given the chance to the Olympics.
Aries thinks the future prospects of women combined are twofold. The number of sports enthusiasts has increased and competition has developed. On the other hand, the threat of the Olympic dream failing is thought-provoking.
– If we do not get a chance to participate in the Olympics, surely this sport will suffer, at least for women. It would be justifiable for us to get there and for equality between species to be achieved.
Petter Kukkonen: more than just the issue of equality in the background
The traditional winter sport combined may be excluded from the Olympics in the future because it is the only Olympic sport in which women do not yet compete.
The most successful athlete in Finland today Ilkka Herola says that there is a high risk that the sport will fall completely out of the 2030 Games if the combined women are not accommodated in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina.
In recent days, speculation has begun to be heard about the possible wiping of the combined men’s race for the upcoming Milan and Cortina Winter Games.
– As far as I know, the removal of the sport from the following Olympic glasses will not be discussed at future meetings of the FIS or the IOC. I don’t know where the rumor has started, Herola comments on moving sports about the sport’s Olympic status to Sport.
Also the former head coach of the Finnish men’s national team Petter Kukkonen believes that the sport is not being eliminated from the 2026 Games, but possibly from the winter Games that will follow.
Kukkonen thinks that there is more to the question of combined status than just the issue of equality.
– This has been talked about in public as an issue of equality, and rightly so. Girls and women must have the right to compete. However, there are other factors behind it. New species with growth potential can bring visibility and money. Money drives the world and international umbrella organizations.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will decide next week whether women will be allowed to compete in the combined Olympics. Another option could be to exclude the sport altogether from the Olympics in the future.
The IOC will decide on the fate of the species at its meeting on 24 June.
The effects would be severe
Herola says the combined race will do their best across land borders to get women involved in the Olympics. The consequences of losing Olympic status would be far-reaching.
– In many countries, funding for elite sports in individual sports is largely driven by the Olympic Committee. It would certainly have major changes ahead with the structure of the whole system.
For example, the Finnish Olympic Committee will support the combined national team with 265,000 euros for next season. That’s almost half of the combined team’s budget.
Herola reminds that combined and hill jumping are in close cooperation, in many countries even more closely than in Finland.
– It would certainly affect the entire international hill jump and combined sport family from the grassroots level.
Towards equality
According to Herola, it took a strangely long time for women to join. The reasons, he says, are hard to say.
According to Herola, women’s hill jumping also serves as a good model for the combined path towards an equal competition system. In hill jumping, women’s competition activities began in 2005. The World Cup was launched in 2011, and in the Olympics, women jumped for the first time in Sochi in 2014. It took a few years for the level of competition to stabilize.
The women’s international competitions were launched in 2015. More time is needed to ensure that international competition is at a sufficiently high level.
– In recent years, development has been rapid, as women’s ski jumping has existed as a sport for a long time. Combined junior activities have also existed to some degree. The trajectory has been faster than in hill jumping. We are already in a situation where the women’s combined is involved in the World Cup and they have their own World Cup tour.
The women’s combined competed in the World Cup in 2021.
According to Kukkonen, the future of the sport looks good if women are accepted to compete in the Olympics.
– It is a smaller species internationally, but it has established itself. It is popular in Finland, Norway, Austria and especially in Germany.
The combined has been competing since the first 1924 Chamonix Winter Olympics. Finland has four gold medals in the sport: Heikki Hasu won in 1948 in St. Moritz, and Samppa Lajunen celebrated the victory of the sprint and normal race in Salt Lake City in 2002. In the same competition, Lajunen was involved in winning the gold medal in the team competition Jari Mantilan, Hannu Mannisen and Jaakko Tallus with.