Samuli and Tuukka Suomalainen will break Finland’s dark streak in Inzell this weekend in the old successful sport, which finally has a light at the end of the tunnel.
In Olympic speed skating ninth most Finland, which won medals, had only been left without representation before the Beijing Olympic Games once, i.e. in Lillehammer 1994.
The skaters of Helsinki Samuli Suomalainen was firmly attached to the 1500m race place in 2022, but a dramatic turn changed the situation of the athlete who finished fourth at the Junior World Championships.
– At the end of 2021, we were going to the fast track in Salt Lake City to give the 1500 meters a final performance that would have sealed the Olympic place. Then Samul developed such a dramatic health problem that it had to be treated immediately on the operating table. That’s how we unfortunately missed out on Olympic representation, says the Sports Director of the Ice Skating Association Janne Hänninen From Inzell, Germany.
Hänninen is currently in the Bavarian speed skating club for a very gratifying reason. The small town will first compete in the sprinters’ World Championships from Thursday to Friday this week and from Saturday to Sunday the world championships for general skaters. Finland is after a long time included in both categories.
– Tuukka Suomalainen represents Finland in the sprinters’ championships, where the last time a place was won in 2019. It is especially gratifying that Samuli Suomalainen achieved a place in the figure skating championships, because the last time we participated was as long ago as 2007, says Hänninen.
Some have not been enviable
In the sprint competitions, 500 and 1000 meters are skated on two days. The general skaters, on the other hand, compete on the opening day with 500 and 5,000 meters and on the latter day with 1,500 and 10,000 meters.
Tuukka Suomalainen, 21, uses the land in Inzell that his brother Samuli, who is four years older, bought. Samuli Suomalainen represented Finland at the World Sprint Championships 2019, but has since moved on to longer distances.
Inzell is a very familiar place to Hännen from his own e.g. from an active career that included three Olympic Games. Because of the conditions in Finland, Hänninen has spent months every year with the athletes in Inzell, which has become the national team’s training base.
In recent years, Hänninen’s role as sports director and practically also the head coach of the national team has not always been enviable.
A former ME man who won two silver medals (2007 and 2013) in the 1000 meters at the Sprinters’ World Championships Pekka Koskela and narrowly missing out on a medal in the 500 meters at the Pyeongchang Olympic Games Mika Poutala ended their careers in 2018, which plunged the sport into quite a bit of media and success. Speed skating has no longer been available in Finland, for example, in free TV coverage, except during the Olympic Games.
The conditions are a huge challenge
In addition, the sport’s most important practice and competition venue, the Oulunkylä ice sports center, will be undergoing renovations for the entire next season, which is what inevitably awaits another important sports center, the Seinäjoki artificial ice. The hall project being promoted in East Helsinki has moved forward, but there is no immediate relief from the environmental problems.
– Ice conditions are especially noticeable when training for longer distances, because those distances require a lot of low-intensity sports training. Due to the conditions, the sport in Finland has become very sprint-oriented over time. After Peka and Mika finished, the international return trip was of course huge, Hänninen admits.
The WC places have been acquired based on the results of the World Cup competitions. In addition to the Finnish brothers, they have competed at the World Cup level this season Juuso Lehtonen and Max Kokko.
– There is now an important light at the end of the tunnel. I believe that the Laura Kivioja will soon become a representative of the world cup on the women’s side and seinäjokinen among the juniors Luka Rintala is a very interesting case.
World Figure Skating Championships in the all-time medal table Finland is no less than fourth, but with the most recent medal, Jouko Launonen of silver, is already 59 years old. The 2007 World Cup representative was Jarmo Valtonen.
Is the Swedish sensation returning to the Olympics?
According to Hänninen, the sport’s biggest stars currently come from the USA and Japan.
– 19 years old Jordan Stolz broke the 1000m ME in January. He would have easily won the sprinters’ WC gold here, but decided to test his limits among the general skaters. Miho Takagi again is currently number one on the women’s side, and she competes in both the sprint and figure skater World Championships, which is a physically amazing feat.
Sweden, one of the great successes of the sport’s distant past, experienced a new, short boom in 2021–2022, when the miracle of endurance Nils van der Poel won the World Cup and Olympic golds and world records in the 5000 and 10,000 meters. Van der Poel ended his career at the Beijing Olympic Spring when he was only 25 years old.
– I talked with him some time ago and I got the impression that the project to return to the Olympic Games in Milan in 2026 would not surprise, Hänninen says.