– The location of the approximate emergency meeting.
Former head coach of the Finnish national skiing team Kari-Pekka Kyrö succinctly summed up the current state of cross-country skiing when he visited the Radio Suomen Urheiluhullut program at the beginning of December.
According to Kyrö, the future of international cross-country skiing is threatened because the competition in the sport has narrowed significantly in the last ten years.
During that time, Norway has reaped success in both men and women with a huge percentage, whether it was the World Cup or prestigious competitions.
In the men’s category, only Russia has been able to respond to the fjord country’s cry on the scale of the level. Sweden and last season Russia, which took the Olympic gold in the 4×5 kilometer relay, have been able to do the same for women.
However, the problems of cross-country skiing are much deeper.
Many traditional skiing countries, which were strong in both genders at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, have since fallen off the success bandwagon and are now struggling to get a credible team to tour the World Cup.
Italy is a big country of skiing not only with the number of medals but also with its conditions. In recent seasons, however, the success has been entirely male and to a large extent Federico Pellegrino in reserve. Simone Mocellini showed a week ago that there is enough potential in Italian men, but in women Italy’s previous individual award place is as far away as it was in March 2011 – and the current situation does not promise a quick change.
Only three Italian women have received World Cup points this season, when the International Ski Federation FIS uses a new scoring system. In that, the top 50 of each race get points, while before the spikes were distributed only to the fastest 30. Under the old system, the number of Italian women who collected points would shrink from three to two.
Although Austria is famous for its ski resorts, and the country is home to the world’s largest ski brand Fischer, its cross-country skiing has lived for years on a second-generation skier, the only woman to tour the World Cup Teresa from Stadlober. Father Alois Stadlober would hardly have believed in such a development when he celebrated relay gold in front of his home crowd in 1999.
Among the skiers of all time Dario Cologna and a two-time winner of the World Cup Laurie van der Graaff discontinued Nadine Fähndrich has taken responsibility for skiing in the winter sports country of Switzerland.
Good thing, because after Fähndrich, the next best skier from the country of the cuckoo clock is 69th in the World Cup points. The ranking of the best man in the overall situation of the Cup (31st) is also nothing to brag about.
France is still a strong factor in men, but in women the best athlete is 37th overall in the World Cup. So it’s no wonder that the country fell to 12th place in the Beijing Olympic relay in February.
At the turn of the 2010s, the Canadians collected a number of prize places in the World Cup, but now, despite the absence of the Russians, the individual Canadians touring the competitions have their work cut out for them to reach the top 30.
Particularly problematic in the case of the above-mentioned countries is that even if they have the right to send 5–6 athletes to the World Cup, they only get 1–3 athletes to the finish line on average. In other words, not even a relay team.
– We are on the verge of serious questions, Kyrö said in Urheiluhullui.
The former top skier who visited the sports fanatics last Monday Ville Nousiainen also took a stand on the subject.
– One should not misunderstand when it is said that skiing is worse than before. That’s not true. If we skiers of the old days were compared to Iivo, Kläbo and Bolshunov, we would be beaten – and badly. There are just not as many top countries as before, Nousiainen said.
Exactly how big a phenomenon is it? And what factors have contributed to this situation? Urheilu went through a development arc that is worrying for the future of the sport.
The number of winning countries and winners collapsed
International top skiing can be viewed with many metrics. Profits are a simple measure, but they are naturally the easiest way to increase the interest value of the sport in each country.
The top phase of the aforementioned Nousiainen’s career began in the 2007–2008 season. This is also where the 15-year review period used in this article begins. During that time, the competition calendar of cross-country skiing has practically been in its current form.
Nousiainen did not get to taste a World Cup competition victory in his career, but his best finish was second place in the 30 km mass start in Rybinski on December 15, 2007.
If the Norwegian men took all but the fourth place in the top ten at the intermediate start in Lillehammer at the beginning of December, in the star moment of Nousiainen’s personal career, all eight top skiers came from different countries. And most importantly, 15 years ago it was not at all exceptional.
In the season 2007-2008, the men’s individual competitions saw no less than 21 winners who came from seven different countries. Last season there were nine winners from four different countries. In order to reach the 21 winners, the seasons 2017-2022 must be added together.
As the graphic shows, the number of winning countries for men has been practically half that of 10–15 years ago in recent years. In women, the drop is even sharper from the beginning of the review period: from 11 to 4–5.
The breadth of the level of the past years is also very apparent when the investigation is expanded to the top three of the World Cup competitions.
In the 2011–2012 season, 25 of the 35 men’s individual competitions ended with the top three athletes coming from different countries. In the case of women, a corresponding streak of 25 races was seen in the 2009–2010 season – although only 30 races were needed then.
The readings of recent years would probably be even lower, if several top skiers did not boycott the Tour de Ski, which is contested at the turn of the year. The boycotts have particularly affected the best women’s teams, unlike 15 years ago.
In the data for the 2020–2021 season, it should also be noted that the Norwegian national team missed almost half of the World Cup games due to the corona situation. Overwhelmingly dominated women’s skiing Therese Johaug also competed selectively last season in preparation for the Beijing Olympics.
Cup points are a delicacy for fewer and fewer
It is possible to understand the change even more clearly when the examination is extended to the World Cup points. And even more precisely, how many athletes from each country accumulated a hundred points during the season.
Until this season, 100 points was almost the limit, upon reaching which the athlete ranked in the top 50 in the World Cup’s total points. The winner of the competition receives a hundred points, but getting the sum behind the top required several rankings between 15 and 30 with the former point calculation system.
Among women, the biggest change in those who reached the 100-point club is that in recent years there have been more of them from Norway, Sweden and the United States. Italy, on the other hand, has been the clearest loser.
If Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States and Germany are left out of the calculations, in the women’s category only Switzerland and Italy had athletes who collected two hundred World Cup points last season, i.e. half of them were members of the relay team.
For example, no Canadian woman has accumulated 100 World Cup points in a season since the 2012–2013 season.
Expenses doubled, the weak fell
The graphics presented in this article show how competition has narrowed significantly since 2013.
At that time, the ski equipment competition got new rounds, when the top countries started spending considerable sums on the maintenance of their national teams.
The Finnish national skiing team has, among other things, had a service truck from the 2013 World Championships. The truck brought the Finnish Ski Association more than 120,000 euros in expenses per season. The budget was also taxed by the grinding machine with its operating costs.
Already large countries increased their competitive advantage over smaller ones.
Ski circles fear that the competition will be distorted even more if the pending ban on fluoride creams launched by FIS comes into force in the near future.
National Ski Associations have very different budget sizes. A concrete example of this was seen in the summer, when a test event for a device that monitors the fluoride ban was organized in Germany. 15 years ago, the guardians of the Czech Republic, which was part of the strong skiing powers, stayed in a van for reasons of economy.
There are several countries like the Czech Republic. Their future prospects are not made easier by the fact that, in order to get FIS competitions, they would have to buy several fluoride monitoring devices with a price of 30,000 euros/piece.
International skiing decision-makers have enough to worry about, how to keep cross-country skiing vibrant. Be it emergency meetings or not.