Athletics EC Championships 7.6–12.6. Ylen channels. See the schedule and broadcast information of the games at this link.
One detail about the European Championship team representing Finland in Rome says a lot. When the team includes a total of 13 pole vaulters and triple jumpers, it is one more athlete than the entire Finnish World Cup team in London 2017.
– It was a time when, in order to get to the Games, you had to pass the tough A result limit or at least the B limit. When this current ranking system came into effect, the game changed completely, says the CEO of the athletics umbrella organization Harry Wave.
150,000 euros
In the association, Aalto is primarily responsible for the finances, which the European Championship team in Rome with no fewer than 67 athletes is burdened with around 150,000 euros this time.
– That is the order of magnitude of this entity. In itself, of course, a significant amount, but exactly the kind of money hole we want to put money into. Core activity, Aalto said on Thursday.
In addition to the athletes, the team includes either the entire competition or at least part of it, 26 support personnel, such as a doctor, muscle carer or coach.
Finland has had an EC team of the same size class only in Munich 2022, when the number was 59 athletes. That year, the Sports Confederation also began to seriously consider the costs of value competition projects.
Huge bill from Eugene
The rankings of the World Championships organized on the other side of the world from Eugene treated the Finns so positively, also due to the well-chosen competition selections that brought a lot of points, that the team size exploded to no less than 36 athletes, for some of whom the World Championship level might not have been quite the right platform.
So it was three times more than five years earlier in London.
Some got their seats at the very last drop, which significantly increased, for example, travel costs. The heavy operation with the advance camps held in the USA cost the union as much as 280,000 euros in the end.
A new strategy?
According to the sports federation’s strategy paper, which is due to expire this fall, the organization is committed to selecting all eligible athletes for the prestigious competitions. For example, places have become available for the Rome Games, which start on Friday, also because some of the elite do not want to compete in two prestige games during the Olympic summer.
– In November, the Federal Council will decide on the strategy for the coming years. In this matter, it can be different from the athletes’ point of view or the same. It will then be implemented. I can’t predict what it will be like, says Harri Aalto.
Norway chose everyone
For comparison, for example, Norway, whose team includes several world stars who are also successful in the Olympic Games, sent the largest competition team in its history, 52 athletes, to Rome.
– We didn’t leave out anyone eligible for selection either, says the team’s media manager Oystein Jarlsbo For Urheilu.
Harri Aalto states that although the ranking system has clearly increased the size of Finland’s prestigious competition teams, it is also about an increase in the general level.
– Athletes have not invented a system. Everyone has earned their place if they got it through the ranking.
In 2022, the Sports Confederation received an operational grant of 500,000 euros from its support foundation, but the financial statements still showed a 120,000 euro deficit. The main reason was the huge pot, which was sunk into the expenses of elite sports.
The president of the union Riga Buttock gave an interview to Urheilu at the time, in which he wondered if the association would have to rethink its value competition selection line later for financial reasons. If, for example, Finland receives as many eligible athletes for the World Championships in Tokyo next year as for Eugene in 2022, the expenditure will be huge.
Pakarinen states now, about a year later, that the largest possible championship teams are something very much worth pursuing in the future.
– We don’t know the final result of the strategy work, but I think the largest possible value race team is a wonderful thing and a sign of the sport’s well-being. Dissing the athletes about it and the selection system is wrong.
Several options have been presented for a possible new selection line. One has been such that only after the screen time limit, those who get their place in the ranking, practically due to other absences, would at least partially pay for their trip to the competition themselves.
– I don’t really like the idea. If we end up with this line, I believe that another model will be found, CEO Aalto says.
According to chairman Pakarinen, the association’s finances are in good shape for this year.
– According to the current information, the financial statements will show a surplus of around 200,000 euros, which is affected by the fact that the match against Sweden is in Helsinki.