Finland was completely without a medal at the Summer Games in Paris. Criticism, especially towards the Finnish Olympic Committee, has been harsh, and many prominent sports influencers have opened their mouths on the matter.
Former race walker Valentin Kononen thundered on Sunday that the Olympic Committee has done a lot of wrong things in the last 20 years. According to him, there is no elite sports process in Finland.
More: Sports influencers are calling for drastic changes after the Paris disaster
The main task of the Olympic Committee has been heavily debated. For example, the athletics boss Riikka Pakarinen According to (SUL), the main task of the Olympic Committee should be in elite sports, not in moving the nation.
Chairman of the Olympic Committee Jan Vapaavuori respond in detail to the criticism in this story.
The first vice-president of the Olympic Committee, Susanna Rahkamo, says that Finland currently does not have a top sports strategy. There is no defined competitive advantage to succeed in global competition. Why isn’t it?
I have considered it a matter of honor that, in professional board work, members refrain from outside speeches. I don’t want to comment on Rahkamo’s speech in any way, because it is not elegant.
The built-in challenge of the system is that there are so many actors. For example, there is the Olympic Committee, which is responsible for strategic management, and the government, which decides on the distribution of money. The network is wide and fragmented, which is why there has been a lack of a common vision. Susanna Rahkamo has been on the board for 12 years, but the situation has been like this more or less longer.
This is a small country. There are many central and quite independent actors. The leadership is divided in two. In the future, we must be able to do better in forming a common vision.
According to Rahkamo, the Olympic Committee has been taken to be the solution to inactivity instead of the pursuit of top global sports success. According to him, elite sports should be returned as the core mission of the Olympic Committee. How do you respond to the vice president’s demand?
The current scope of the Olympic Committee is defined between 2010 and 2017. In the past, we had several central sports organizations. A large part of them were put together and became VALO in 2012. After that (2017) they were merged into the Olympic Committee. A decision was made that the broad sports culture, from immobility and exercise for children and young people to club activities and top sports, is under the same organization.
I wasn’t making decisions, among other things Susanna Rahkamo herself was. It would be a world-class fraud to abandon some of these tasks now. In connection with its merger, top sport was also a clear winner. Even in Norway, which is doing very well, the organizations are under the same organization. I don’t see any contradiction in them being the same under the roof. It is by no means removed from elite sports.
According to Riikka Pakarinen, the president of the Finnish Sports Federation, which is responsible for athletics, the Olympic Committee should focus purely on elite sports and be responsible for moving the people through sports federations and clubs. Should the Olympic Committee focus on elite sports in the future?
The argument that immobility should be transferred to sports associations is partly about not understanding what we are talking about. The biggest challenges of immobility are related to changes in people’s everyday lives. Sports federations and club activities can only partially correct this.
It’s a question of getting schools, workplaces, daycare centers and the army to join this. That is why centralized management is needed. The fact that it would be divided into species associations is not reasonable at all. Sports associations do not have the conditions to take overall responsibility for this.
Basketball influencer Henrik Dettmann, on the other hand, sees the opposite, that the Olympic Committee should not be responsible for elite sports. Could the Olympic Committee be just a sports organization and transfer the responsibility for elite sports to sports federations, for example?
Recently, we have been very actively thinking about how the operation of the top sports network can be improved. All key reference countries have a central central organization that is responsible for a large entity. Top sports are done at many levels, such as at the grassroots level. However, there is also centralized management everywhere.
We have very different types of sports. There are big sports like ice hockey, football and maybe basketball. Whose resources as independent operators go a long way. They still benefit from being a big part of the whole. However, strong central organization work is especially important for small species.
You have to dare to make choices. Other small or medium-sized countries have focused on smaller sports with less competition unlike, for example, athletics. For smaller sports, for example, the support of the Olympic Committee is essential.
The world champion of race walking, coach Valentin Kononen, says that Finland does not have the process, know-how or operating model of top sports to produce the world’s best athletes. He used Norway’s Olympiatoppen as a point of comparison. Why does Finland lack these success factors?
We share some of the same success factors. We also have peaks. We should not forget that we received eight Olympic medals in winter sports (2022 Beijing). It should not be forgotten that the main ball sports are doing better overall than they have been in a long time. There are individual sports in both Olympic and non-Olympic sports where we can do well. It’s not that comforting.
Where we have failed is that we have not been able to promote genuine cross-species cooperation. All the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) say with one voice and separately that a very radical cooperation that connects the boundaries of species is the thing. We have done it too, but it seems that substantially less. That is something where we at the Olympic Committee have failed.
A rather critical independent assessment of Finland’s elite sports prospects was made by Danish-Finnish forces in 2022, in which Finland was considered more of a competitive than an elite sports country. Deficiencies were seen in management. According to Kononen, the report’s recommendations have not been put into practice. Why not?
The report has been worked on very extensively. It has been thought about all year in the extensive top sports network. The idea is to get a new joint strategy during the fall.
It didn’t make sense to try to launch work right before the summer games. The schedule was originally that it would be completed at the end of this year. Of course, you can say that it could have been done faster.
Where can you find the recipe for Finland to get back into the medal pool in the summer Olympic sports?
There must be a common vision of what to do. The legitimacy of elite sports must be improved. Especially in connection with prestigious competitions, there is a heated debate about how important elite sports success is. Still, political decision-makers are reluctant to support it.
You have to understand that it is important and you have to support it. After that, the broad network must have a common vision. After that, you have to make choices. It’s not easy in a small country.
As one option, Kononen hinted at abolishing the Olympic Committee’s Top Sports Unit and moving resources “closer to sweat”. Should this be considered?
Here, the central support mechanism starts from supporting the masses. For example, Denmark has invested more in strategic and qualitative criteria. Through this, it has been possible to direct more support to smaller sports with potential for success.
There is a very systematic talent screening in the world, which has not been systematically done in Finland. We also need to invest more in coaching skills and creating the conditions. There were very successful Finns at the Olympics who almost brought medals. Their coaches coach in addition to other work. It is clear that this issue needs to be improved.
All key reference countries have a body that manages the whole. You have to understand that doing top sports is the cooperation of a wide network, which is led by some entity. That’s why such an option (the abolition of the Huippu sports unit) is not possible.
According to former decathlete and athletics boss Sami Itani, the result of the Olympic team’s zero medals is the result of big strategic mistakes that have been made over the years. Do you agree or disagree?
It’s hard to see that big strategic mistakes have been made. It’s more about not keeping up with the developing world. It has not been successful enough to develop its own activities. It is not well enough to know how to localize talents and create the conditions for their success.
When Sami Itani uses his speeches, you have to remember that athletics is more than half of our team. When we have one medalless Games behind us, in athletics we have three consecutive (Olympic) medalless Games behind us. If mistakes have been made, they have been made in other places as well.
What strategic mistakes do you think have been made? Does the strategy need to be changed?
I can’t figure out what Itani is referring to. The main problem is that the system is too fragmented and there is no strong centralized management. Partly due to this, we have not been able to make sufficiently strong choices and prioritization.
You said on Sunday that focusing resources on certain sports could be a solution. What would that mean in practice and which sports should you focus on in Finland?
Most small and medium-sized countries have made more choices. They have resourced many smaller species. It’s a conversation we need to have as well.
Is it worth investing in those sports with the biggest masses and the most international competition? Or should you try to look for future Olympic winners in smaller sports? If the only guiding star is that you want to get medals, you have to make bold choices. If we want to maintain a wide range of species for other reasons, the answer is of a different type.
What do you think is the biggest single reason that Finland has completely fallen behind the competition countries in the summer Olympic sports?
I don’t think there is a single explanation for that. There are age groups that are decreasing in size and in increasingly poor condition, and are mostly oriented towards team sports. On the other hand, they have not been able to make strong enough choices. There is not enough common will and vision. There has not been enough investment in systematic coaching skills.
How quickly must changes be made in top sports in order to see a result after four years in Los Angeles?
We already know with up to 80 percent certainty who the medal hopefuls are in Los Angeles. It’s a matter of two different things. It is a question of how we are able to invest in existing talent and, on the one hand, how we get new ones.
Four years is too short a period of time to be able to change the system in a way that would systematically bring in new international-level athletes capable of Olympic medals. However, it is a long enough time frame that we can invest in those hopes that already exist. Both things have to be done in parallel.
How does criticism affect your desire to continue as chairman?
The criticism partly stems from the fact that the presidential election (in November) is coming up. Speeches related to the presidential elections have been used here, among other things. It involves creating different impressions. Sure, it’s partly boring, but of course that’s part of it.
I have been a candidate for parliament four times, seven times for the Helsinki City Council and once for the chairmanship of the Olympic Committee. I haven’t been in the habit of giving up. I’m not afraid of elections.
So are you going to run again in the November presidential election?
The final decision will be made during the fall. It depends on what else there is in life. You have to remember that this is a very time-consuming hobby.
The more is expected from the chairman, the more it will demand in the future. That’s something to think about. Otherwise, the journey is incomplete. A lot has been learned in the past weeks, months and years. I see that I still have something to contribute to this task.