Former national team coach Glenn Lindholm will make Chinese skiers sweat at least this summer. He assures that the giant country will continue to invest heavily in winter sports as well.
The Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 will be remembered for the extremely strict corona restrictions, the top success of Finnish skiers and ice hockey players, and the monumental performance venues.
The Chinese winter athletes also prepared for their home games with the help of Finnish coaching expertise. The Vuokatti sports college invested heavily in the Chinese who trained in Kainuu, Mika Kojonkoski led the hill project and the skiers of the host country were coached by, among others, the person responsible for the Finnish women’s national team 2021–2022 Glenn Lindholm.
After the Olympics, everything quieted down. Regarding cross-country skiing, it is telling that China achieved a total of zero points in the World Cup last season. Vuokatti’s investments in China are history, and the Finnish coaches have left the country – except for one.
“Totally expected”
– It was fully expected that after the Beijing Games, China will draw oxygen before starting to tighten the screws again towards the Olympic Games in Milan 2026, comments Glenn Lindholm.
He answers Urheilu’s call from Heilongjiang, the most northeastern province of China, quite close to the North Korean border.
The province of just under 40 million inhabitants is the sanctuary of Chinese winter sports, where Lindholm, according to his accounts, is coaching for at least the fifth time, in pools of varying sizes.
At the 2018 Pyeongchang Paralympic Games, he worked with Chinese paraskiers, and in Beijing 2022, he worked with unclassified athletes. After the Olympic Games, Lindholm refused a long continuation of e.g. due to family reasons, but last spring I got a call again.
– During the last school year, I worked as a teacher in a primary school in Lovi. The spring party was held on Saturday, June 3, I spent my summer vacation on Sunday, June 4, and on Monday, June 5, I flew to China to train.
Lindholm promised to coach specifically the representative skiers of Heilongjiang province for June-July. The last day of July is planned as the date of return home, but there have been further offers as well. At least at the moment, Lindholm doesn’t think he’ll catch them.
Own value competitions
– The group includes about 50 athletes. The best have a background at the Olympic and World Cup level. Here, next season is not really talked about as a season without value competition like in Europe. China organizes its own winter championships, which are valued here second most after the Olympic Games. They are also financially very profitable for the successful.
The Finnish coach doesn’t do the work.
– The salary is competitive, but moderate when calculated as an hourly salary. There is so much work.
Lindholm trains skiers twice a day from Monday to Saturday for a total of about 26 hours. Sunday is a day of rest. The team and coaching live in the Olympic coaching center, whose infrastructure Lindholm considers very appropriate.
– Now for three weeks I haven’t seen a single non-Chinese person, which tells us that we are quite isolated here.
A national team skier Remi Lindholm father and former coach of the A national team has watched mournfully how the head coach Teemu Badass had to cut the planned camping program due to the rough financial situation of the Ski Association.
– We have much better resources here than the Finnish national team. Of course, I am saddened by the situation in Finland, just as the father of a national team skier – especially since the expectations placed on athletes in Finland, even in this situation, do not correspond to their opportunities to prepare.
Whereas Teemu Pasanen has promised his athletes two guaranteed training camps before the start of the competition season, Lindholm’s payers have promised one.
– It started around the turn of April-May and ends in February.