Both the director of the Finnish Cup, Hannu Koivusalo, and the former lubrication manager of the Finnish national skiing team, Mika Venäläinen, would have liked a longer transition period to the fluoride ban.
Anu Karttunen,
Petra Manner
The fluoride ban has already talked about ski circles before the start of the season, because it has caused a lot of additional work and brought a lot of additional costs. Among other things Krista Pärmäkoski told In an interview with Ilta-Sanomihow he has spent hours thoroughly cleaning his pairs of skis and how all ski-related equipment has had to be either cleaned or replaced with new ones.
The fluoride ban is valid from this season in the competitions under the International Ski Federation (FIS) and the International Biathlon Union (IBU), but in Finland it is not in national competitions. In addition to skiers, the fluoride ban brings additional work to those working with maintenance trucks, especially if the trucks are used in FIS competitions.
A thorough cleaning awaits the service truck
On the opening weekend of the Finnish Cup, a familiar man can be found in the service truck area, as he left the position of lubrication manager of the Finnish national team last season Mika Venäläinen maintains the skis of Jämi Jänte skiers in Vuokatti.
To the simple question “are there fluorine in the soles of the skis?”, the Russian gives an equally simple answer:
– Is.
The Russian knows very well that the use of fluoride in national competitions brings its own challenges for guardians. For example, Jämin Jänte’s maintenance truck will travel to Ruka in a couple of weeks, where the Finnish Cup will be skied first and then the World Cup.
At that time, maintenance is even more urgent, because Jänte’s service truck is used in the World Cup as a maintenance facility for the national team, so all traces of fluorine must be removed. Even a small amount of fluoride cream residues can cause a positive result in the test.
– Fluoride is used in the Suomen Cup and after that you have to do a thorough cleaning. It’s hard to say what kind of job it will be, but we hope that we can get through and get the car clean for the World Cup, the Russian said.
The Russian would have liked a longer transition period to the fluorine ban, because according to him, fluorine creams are widely used in Finland by junior skiers, maintenance men and regular skiers as well.
– That there would be no need to use fluorine as a running cream, but that it would be used away in the competitions, as it has been until now, the Venäläinen said and said that he hoped above all that there would be no more packing in the fluorine ban.
– This has been packed for two or three years, and in between I managed to do quite a lot of cleaning and staining.
Too fast a schedule for the national championships
Leader of the Finnish cup competition series Hannu Koivusalo according to that there is a clear reason that fluoride creams can be used in national competitions.
– The rule has come into force relatively recently, and all related instructions have come in a reasonably fast time frame. There hasn’t been any possibility of implementing the rule into national operations on this schedule, Koivusalo said.
One factor is money, as the equipment that tests fluoride cream costs an estimated 30,000 euros. Organizing the tests at the competition venue is also quite laborious.
Koivusalo reminds that during the season there can be as many as ten competitions in the same day all over Finland. If there was a fluoride ban in domestic competitions, it should also be possible to test it in these competitions.
– The fact that we start buying ten devices, hardly anyone has budgeted for that.
Koivusalo says he belongs to the group that has been a little confused by the fluoride ban. He emphasizes that few are against the issue themselves, but cross-country skiing is in a challenging position because of the ban.
– The fact that the ban will possibly and probably be fully implemented at some point requires a little more time than the schedule that is currently being attempted.