According to Petter Kukkonen, alarm bells should ring in skiing. Janne Ahonen’s podium record was shattered a week ago. At some point, Hannu Manninen also falls to second place.
Roope Visuri,
Riku Salminen
About Finnish winter sports legends Janne Ahonen one of the all-time records was shattered last weekend when Stefan Kraft surpassed Kuningaskotka as the most ski jumping World Cup podium finisher of all time.
Another winter sports legend Hannu Manninen the podium place record may also be broken soon. Norwegian Jarl Magnus Riiber is just one more podium place away from Mannis as the combined all-time podium finisher.
Janne Ahonen took the loss of his record in stride.
– It would be more special if no records were broken. There’s no need to be upset. I should have been more successful if I wanted to keep the records in my name, Ahonen said in Urheilustudio.
Urheilu’s ski jumping expert Ahonen also does not want to explain that there are many more World Cup competitions today than in his time.
Urheilu’s combined expert and long-time head coach of Finland’s combined national team Petter Kukkonen however, he wanted to give a fiery speech about the situation in skiing.
According to Kukkonen, you have to look deeper than national team coaching if you want other than individual tops in skiing every now and then. He would like to add vitality to sports clubs. In Kukkonen’s opinion, everything starts from the conditions of the clubs being in order and getting children involved in the activities.
– That would be by far the most important goal for, say, the Finnish Ski Federation. If this happens, you can coach even a little wrong, Kukkonen began.
He made a comparison to the Jyväskylä cheerleading club, which has 800 enthusiasts.
– We know that one million people ski on skis in Finland. We get three thousand registered skiers. We should see if everything is being done right at the moment? Kukkonen emphasizes.
– Should the Ski Association still rethink the concept? Are we stuck in the 1980s or 1990s? We should get vitality into the clubs. You should put all possible effort there. That way we would be able to grow species, says Kukkonen.
In his opinion, ski sports should dare to innovate now. The competition for people’s free time has become increasingly fierce.
– You have to listen to what is happening on the field. You have to meet that challenge. I don’t think we were awake to that. Alarm bells must ring, Kukkonen underlines.
The sports studio day starts at 10:15 a.m. First up is the women’s 20 km joint start competition in the skiing world cup. In the combined event, the day starts with the women’s hill race. You can find everything about the Urheilustudio weekend here.