If the equipment is competitive, Iivo Niskanen will not be in 14th place at the intermediate start of the liisterkeli. The Finnish national skiing team has not yet moved to a new era, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
Falun, February 13, 2016. In the World Cup, a 10-kilometer traditional intermediate start is exceptionally skied instead of the normal 15-kilometer competition. Iivo Niskanen crosses the finish line as the 22nd fastest man in the competition.
After that, the history of Niskanen is knownwhen the intermediate start of the normal distance has been hit in front while skiing along the piste.
The World Cup in Trondheim over the weekend has been a real place for Niskanes. In Saturday’s combined competition (24th place) the best Finn was Perttu Hyvärinenin Sunday’s 10 km split start (14th place) again Markus Vuorela. This is also a kind of modern Finnish skiing history on the 2025 World Cup tracks.
Arrived as an optimist
Niskanen, who will soon reach the ripe old age of 32, knows his body and fitness well; physical performance was not a decisive variable in Trondheim. The man arrived in Central Norway as an optimist.
We came from the cold and dry weather of the beginning of the season to conditions where the differences between the now completely prohibited fluoride creams and the permitted fluoride-free products literally explode in favor of the first mentioned.
In this game, Finland is simply not on the map at the moment, it’s good if even on its outskirts.
Sufficient evidence
Let’s make this one thing clear: If Iivo Niskanen gets skis suitable for skis, which are competitively ground, hand patterned and lubricated, for the traditional skiing intermediate start competition, his ranking will not be 14th.
This argument does not need more empirical evidence to support it.
Whatever one’s opinion is about the meaning of the fluoride ban and its effectiveness in world saving talks, it is now the prevailing reality and the only alternative.
In Finland, the challenge has been met by allowing the use of fluorides in practically everything except international top skiing. It has caused great surprise in Sweden and Norway, which take the fluoride ban more seriously.
Both are, the results say it all, light years ahead of Finland in the testing and implementation of equipment packages revolutionized by fluoride-free creams. And not even the only ones.
Pants in bunches
The Finnish national ski team is saved by the fact that we are living through a rare season without a prestigious competition. We will probably be able to get on the same page with the racing bets who have already moved to the new reality by the 2024-2025 season.
In skiing, Finland, which has always been known to be resistant to change, must have played with a bottom-up and poor routine. The entry into force of the fluoride ban, which had been postponed many times and was already thought to have been watered down, finally surprised the team with their pants in knots.
The rest is history, at least for this season.