The camp program of the A national skiing team for the starting training season is not one that Iivo Niskanen would find meaningful to join.
19.4. 11:44•Updated 19.4. 13:16
Last spring’s hard skiing news was that of a three-time Olympic champion Iivo Niskanen being left out of the strength of the skiing A national team for the entire training season. Niskanen announced at the time that the operational and camping resources of the A national team were not at such a level that he would have seen it as the most meaningful solution for him to participate in the activities before the start of the international competition season at the end of November.
Huge losses
Regarding the starting training season, which culminates in the World Cup in Trondheim, the national team’s resource situation looks even weaker. The Hiihtoliitto group’s losses were confirmed in the most recent financial statement, confirmed last month, at almost two million euros.
Niskanen, who finished second in the World Cup competitions three times in the season that ended, told Urheilu on Friday that he had already made conclusions about the umbrella organization’s possibilities to help its top athletes in the coming months. He is not joining the A national team’s lineup either.
Quick solutions
– We haven’t heard from the national team yet, but based on the rumors, it seems that there is not an athletically sufficient package and camp coming. Solutions must be made quickly, because the training season will start soon. Then you have to be at the best possible level of plans and circumstances.
Last spring’s solution cost Niskanen this Manager Miro Rouskun including “tens of thousands of euros”, but the athlete is ready to invest a considerable amount of his own money in the World Cup and Olympic seasons. Niskanen’s own partners participated and participate in financing the investment as well.
– Yes, I am ready to make that investment again, Niskanen says.
Although last season the results were at Niskanen’s goal level only at times, in a few competitions he still showed his world-class potential and that World Cup and Olympic success is still a real reality.
Satisfied with the training season
– Illnesses ruined the results last season, but the training season went really well by all measures, including the tests. So it wasn’t about that.
Niskanen is not about to join, for example, a foreign team for the training season. He prepares his program as a coach Ollie Ohtonen with independently, but will certainly also train with top foreign skiers between May and October.
There is no high ground camp
One skier going to the A national team tells Urheilu anonymously that the information received about the summer and autumn program has been disappointing for the athletes. The traditional October glacier camp in Italy’s Val Senales would be possible again after the lift renovation is completed, but instead the national team is going to Ramsau, which is located much lower. The biggest surprise for the athletes was that the high-place camp in August would be completely left out of the national team program. In recent years, the place has been Italy’s Passa Lavaze.
Part of the A national team level athletes, in the front nose Mark Mountain, Lauri Lepistö and Remi Lindholmhas applied for a position at the privately funded Team Electrofit.
The head coach explains
The head coach Teemu Pasanen admitted that the camp program will change in the face of the exodus.
– The camping season can be a kind of compromise, because of course the most important thing is to secure funding for the competition season. The framework plan has been made and the athletes have been told, although we have not yet received a budget from the association. The plan is in line with economic realities, because there is certainly no more money in use than a year ago.
The omission of Passo Lavaze and Val Senales from the program is mostly related to financial reasons. Passo Lavazen is replaced by the Trondheim camp, which also includes a roller skiing competition. Ramsau is also more affordable than Val Senales.
Pasanen says that he discussed the new plans with the national team athletes this week and last week and that he has not been able to lock them in because the federation has not given a budget.
– No one selected for the national team last spring has said that they will be left out.
The head coach estimates that national team sizes will decrease. The top team would be the Olympic team, and below that another team, which would pay for their camp with a lot of their own money.
Perttu Hyvärinen said on Friday that he intends to join the A national team, but that he is also prepared for heavy investments of his own.
– I pay for two high-altitude camps myself: one in Livigno and the other in Davos.
The story was completed at 13:15 with comments from Teemu Pasanen and Perttu Hyvärinen.