Krista Pärmäkoski committed to continue for at least one season, and at her age it doesn’t make sense to hang on to projects for years, writes sports reporter Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen
Working in the Olympic Committee’s elite sports department Tommi Pärmäkoski was present on behalf of his position when the top experts in Finnish sports medicine gathered for their seminar in Helsinki on April 20. This spring, he finished his career as a physical trainer in Tappara, Tampere, as a happy Finnish champion, but at the time of the seminar, his spouse lived Krista Pärmäkoski stared at Kuortane with a so-called ax eye.
Of course, she also became the Finnish champion in Tampere last season, but that didn’t console the woman who was supposed to become a world champion in Planica, Slovenia.
Absolutely one of Finland’s best athletes over the past decade, the skier planned a wonderful, at this point, 12 silver and bronze medals, wrapping up his career as a great success at the World Championships.
Medal train off the tracks
However, the medal train was completely derailed after the turn of the year, and the end of the season became a dull stomach-churning for the athlete who returned from prestigious competitions eight times with a medal or medals. The meaning of elite sports was once again put to the test.
– Of course I can’t promise anything on behalf of anyone, but the Krista I know can hardly be finished in such a season, Tommi Pärmäkoski laughed when I cautiously inquired about the continuation of her career at the coffee table.
The husband knew what he was talking about. Pärmäkoski said on his social media channel on Tuesday that he will continue his career. This promise would never have been achieved without the bitter disappointments of last season.
Read more: Krista Pärmäkoski’s career continues! “I want to experience that pain again” – you may not see him in the prestigious competitions anymore
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the promise applies only to the 2023–2024 season, in which no World Cup or Olympic medals are awarded. Of course, this does not mean that Pärmäkoske might not also be seen at the World Cup in Trondheim and even at the Olympic Games in Milan in 2025 and 2026. But the back gate is a reasonable solution for the 32-year-old athlete who already skied as a medalist at the age of 20.
The level of the last part of the season was not close to what Pärmäkoski is capable of when he is healthy and trained well, but on the other hand, no one can give 100% guarantees that the top of the world has already run away from him for good. Pärmäkoski will not remain the operator of Keskikasti for a moment, but will immediately move on to other things at this stage.
A woman who is comfortably prosperous in elite sports dreams of the same things as many women in their thirties, i.e. a family and a so-called normal working life, from which elite sports are far away.
Big disappointment
Pärmäkoski’s decision is positive for the national team management and the Finnish Ski Federation. However, Pärmäkoski was very disappointed when he returned as the women’s national team coach after a long break, with a good psychological eye for the game Jussi Piirainen decided to leave his position after only one season.
Expressing diplomatically, Pärmäkoski has not always felt the spirit of the women’s national team to be optimal and would have hoped that Piirainen, who has done a good job in this field, would continue. Although he also lightly floated the idea of preparing for the upcoming season outside of the A national team, such as in the 2019 training season, no concrete steps were taken.
The high-quality training friends from Pärmäkoski at that time are mainly ex-skiers, and the reception in their own national team was not particularly warm in late autumn 2019.
If Pärmäkoski were to continue his career as far as the 2026 Milan Olympic Games, the time gap between his first and last adult competitions would be no less than 17 years. This is how he would reach in this matter Aino-Kaisa Saarinenbut would Marja-Liisa from Kirvesniemi after a year.
Saarinen is also the most recent Finnish woman to have won gold in the adult competition. If we had to guess now, the situation will hardly have changed in the spring of 2026, when the Olympic skiing is finished.