The era of fluoride-free creams has started exactly as expected, writes journalist Atte Husu.
Atte Husuurheilhu reporter
Disaster. Fiasco. Farce. What are these now?
Even though the ski season is only five weeks behind us, the media has already had time to associate the entire spectrum of negative words with the Finnish national ski team. And mostly for ski maintenance of the national team.
If the journalists have had a hard time with the headlines, the Finnish skiers have done their part by pouring gasoline on the flames.
The guardians of the national team have received such a large amount of public criticism that previous operators in the field have literally been horrified.
– My God, are grown people not able to handle their disappointment, but are forced to throw everything into the ether without any introspection? in recent years, a person who had a high position in Finnish maintenance would speak to the undersigned after a weekend.
A wider round of calls to former guardians revealed that the above-mentioned actor was not alone in his thoughts.
When emotions have spilled over at ski camps, one has stood out. The head coach Teemu Pasanen has performed stoically from weekend to weekend, regardless of the outcome.
On a moped on the highway
Many consider Finland to be a great skiing country. That’s how it is in the light of history.
A few top individuals, in other words Your neck of siblings and Krista Pärmäkoski, the success has, however, radically defined the image of the general state of blue-and-white skiing. When the stars have not passed, the words mentioned at the beginning are delicately dug out.
Everyone should remember a few facts when criticizing. Fluoride creams, which have leveled the differences in skiers’ equipment for 35 years, were banned for this season, which has put the national teams in an unequal position.
If Norway has nine ski guardians who get paid all year round and Sweden has six, in Finland the number has been around zero for years.
When taking into account the Ski Association’s summer savings measures, which included layoffs as an essential part, the national team’s new maintenance manager Heikki Tonteri was able to start his paid job only in the fall.
For Finns, the starting setup for the season has been classy on a moped on the highway.
The field is leveling
From the very beginning, it has been clear that large countries will benefit the most from the lack of fluoride. The reason is the emphasis on the ski pack and, above all, the amount of testing.
According to informed estimates, the Finnish national team has tested fluoride-free creams over the years, ten percent of the number of Norwegians.
The competition at the top will level off as the season progresses, but big swings are still possible. Even probable ones.
Pasanen repeated the same before the second cup weekend of the season in Jällivaara. There, the team made its successful bottom quote.
On New Year’s Eve in Toblach, the swing went in the other direction, when Kerttu Niskanen won the women’s 10 km time trial and Perttu Hyvärinen did the same in men a few hours later.
In both of Saturday’s games, Finland’s maintenance was maximally successful, for which the team generously shared praise.
However, the free sprint that opened the Tour just a day before had time to carve out a disaster again.
Everyone should be aware that the current season is a historic challenge for national team maintenance. There will be swings, violent ones in the future, especially when we get to the spring games.
At the current rate, there will be plenty of disaster headlines related to domestic skiing before the World Cup is wrapped up.
Whether talking about a disaster in sports makes any sense in the current world political situation is a question of its own.
Urheilu follows the Tour de Ski in this article.