Sometimes in sports, one or two athletes can have a revolutionary effect on how the overall situation of the whole team looks to the outside. Imagination can easily fool you.
In the men’s combined Ilkka Herola and Eero Hirvonen are literally worth their weight in gold for the Finnish national team. Both are seasoned top 10 athletes.
Since the 2015–2016 season, Herola has reached the top ten in the final points of the overall World Cup competition seven times and Hirvonen twice.
Herola has been at best seventh in the overall race and Hirvonen sixth. When one of them has had a difficult phase, it has been the other Finn who has consistently reached the top ten and fought for the podium places.
Without them, the overall situation would be completely different.
With two athletes
When Finland’s top two are left out of the calculations, the previous Finn who reached the top ten is Leevi Mutru. He was ninth in the Lahti World Cup in February 2019.
In the last 12 years, only Herola, Hirvonen, Mutru and Arttu Mäkiaho.
The latter achieved his only top 10 place more than six years ago in Ruka. Mutru also has only two of them.
The top 10 place indicates that there is even a small potential for the podium. When you do it often, the probability increases.
Herola has reached the top 10 in the World Cup more than 80 times and Hirvonen more than 30 times. Herola has 11 podium places and Hirvosen has six. So even at their level, the podium finishers are tight.
– At the moment, we are undeniably relying too much on two athletes. There are not a lot of guys joining the national team on a very wide front. Not to mention the level that Eero and Ilkka are at, the four-time overall winner of the Combined World Cup Hannu Manninen admit the harsh truth.
The difficulties of young achievers
Combined is a small species. There is not such a large mass of athletes available, from which we can afford to draw the most talented pearls of all.
Despite that, there have still been good baby boomers in recent years. Seven years ago, Arttu Mäkiaho won the World Youth Championship gold.
Among those born between 2000 and 2002, Finland has had several good talents. In the summer of 2017, the Finnish boys won Perttu Reposen leading to a four-way win in the Junior series.
Four years ago, Finland celebrated the victory of the team competition at the World Junior Championships, and Reponen won silver in the individual competition. Both young achievers have had various health challenges.
In the World Cup, Reponen has been at his best two years ago, once reaching 20th place.
Sports’ combined expert Petter Kukkonen was the head coach of the Finnish national team in 2012–2022.
– In my time, it would have been desirable if there had been more internal competition. That’s for sure.
Kukkonen says that in the big picture, the mills of other countries’ sports systems grind Finnish counterparts more efficiently. He adds that the Ski Federation has not succeeded well enough in any sport in club work and building an athlete’s path.
– Even more important is how to get enthusiastic children into sports clubs and then strive towards the top of the world. It has been a challenge for a long time.
Not the same capabilities
Petter Kukkonen feels that Finland’s young talents in recent years have received all possible support from the association. Among other things, it has been found out why Reponen has been sick so much.
– What could have been done with them so that they would have done better? Artu had one good season in 2017–2018. A few years ago it seemed that he was coming again. For one reason or another, some athletes just can’t break through to the top.
Kukkonen takes himself as an example. In his own career, he won the youth world championship, but he never reached the points in the world cup.
Hannu Manninen reminds that the Skiing Association, which is suffering from financial difficulties, cannot make big improvements on its own. However, he hopes, like Kukkonen, that grassroots activities would be put on a better footing.
Born in 1976, Manninen thinks that not many juniors have the same opportunities in the sport as he had.
– We practiced many sports in summer and winter. The more versatile the background, the better prepared you are to develop yourself.
Manninen finds it regrettable that we start focusing on one specific sport too early.
– The versatility phase of an athlete remains very short. It’s a shame that in many sports, they try to bind athletes only to their own sport. The skills for practicing the sport are not as good as before.
The fate of hill jumping ahead?
Herola turns 29 this year and Hirvonen turns 28. Kukkonen believes that both will continue until at least the 2026 Olympics.
– The important thing for the sport as a whole is whether the sport’s Olympic status will be maintained. If women don’t get the right to compete in 2030, it may mean that men won’t either. What does it mean for the funding and visibility of the sport? It will certainly affect how both of them build their own careers, Kukkonen sees.
Both Kukkonen and Manninen consider Repo to be the most potential of Finland’s young combined men. He also has the necessary know-how for ski jumping, which has long been a stumbling block for Finnish combined men.
Read more: The most recent competition winner of Finnish ski jumping can’t watch the games anymore
However, it is quiet behind Repose, which was born in 2002. A week ago it was ten years since the previous World Cup podium place achieved by a Finnish male ski jumper. At the beginning of the 2000s, there was a huge amount of success and scope in Finnish hill jumping, so the drop has been big.
In the early 2000s Sampa LajunenManninen, Jaakko Tallus and Anssi Koivuranta were responsible for the great success. After them, the wheel of success has been on the wane.
Will the combined Finnish men’s ski jumping fate await when Herola and Hirvonen retire?
– Such a threat absolutely exists. When we go forward ten years and by then we haven’t had athletes of the same level, after that it’s a difficult road to raise an athlete to the top of the World Cup, Manninen says.
Hannu Manninen knows that for young national team newcomers, it is particularly important what kind of environment they come into. About ten years ago, he served as an example for the still very inexperienced Ilkka Herola and Eero Hirvone.
– It is always easier when there are athletes in the team who reach the podium. Each exercise has the level that the world demands.
– When successful athletes are out of the team, the situation is very difficult. You have to be a really talented athlete who can rise to the top of the world with his own work, Manninen says.