– In today’s society, this is a really difficult topic. When talking about equality, it easily starts to define everything and economic figures are completely forgotten.
Former head coach of the Finnish national team Petter Kukkonen known for his outspokenness, but now he weighs his words carefully. Urheilu has asked Kukkose for an honest assessment of the state of his beloved sport, and especially of the women’s combined team, which is taking its first steps.
The development of women’s combined would be vital for the sport as a whole, but in light of the financial readings it is difficult at the moment. The sport is a loss-making activity for the organizers, and there are noticeable disagreements in skiing circles about whose responsibility it is to promote women’s combined.
There is a fear in the air that if women’s combined follows the example of women’s ski jumping in terms of economic development, the sport could run into serious problems.
A sport in its infancy
Until last summer, Petter Kukkonen was the head coach of the Finnish men’s combined team. When Kukkonen started in that race in 2012, the women’s combined team had no international or national competition activities of any kind.
However, change was brewing thanks to the sibling species.
Women’s ski jumping debuted at the World Championships in 2009 and became part of the FIS World Cup calendar in the 2011-2012 season. The sport debuted at the Olympic level in 2014.
The next Winter Olympics, to be held in Italy in 2026, will for the first time feature the same number of female and male jumpers, 50, with an identical competition program. There is still a long way to go in such a situation with equal competition opportunities, as the Women’s Combined World Cup has only been contested for one full season. Its results are not flattering when it comes to the level and scope of the competition.
Although World Cup points are distributed to the 30 best athletes in each competition, only one competition has a total of 30 names. Norwegian Gyda Westvold Hansen has won almost all the competitions in which he has skied to the finish line.
The women’s combined applied for Olympic status for the 2026 Winter Olympics, but the International Olympic Committee IOC did not support the application. The decision was a setback not only for the women’s but also for the men’s combined, because if the women do not make it to the Olympics, the whole sport is threatened with elimination from the five-ring competition.
– 4-5 years ago, the message started to come out that equality must come to the center if the sport is to be kept in the Olympics. Now FIS has started the World Cup. However, FIS is not ready to finance the combined development of women, but the matter is practically entirely the responsibility of the national federations and competition organizers, says Kukkonen.
– The situation is not easy, when the men’s team alone is mainly a loss-making operation.
The TV value of women’s competitions is non-existent
National ski associations are responsible for organizing World Cup competitions. Their area of responsibility includes, for example, the payment of prize money, the travel and accommodation costs of both athletes and maintenance, and the on-site management of the competition infrastructure, ski jumping and, in the combined case, the wind compensation system for example.
The main source of income for the associations is the compensation received from the TV contract, which is not public information. According to Urheilu’s sources, the compensation paid for the Men’s Ski Jumping World Cup competition is currently between 350,000 and 400,000 euros. In men’s combined, the amount is about a third. When you add up the contract values for men and women in cross-country skiing, you arrive at about half the value of men’s ski jumping.
The men’s downhill races are vital to the Finnish Skiing Federation, so that the Kuusamo and Lahti World Cups would have surplus results. From the surplus, the association can distribute money to both national team and grassroots activities.
Although women’s ski jumping debuted at the World Cup level already 14 years ago, the TV compensation paid for it still does not even cover the prize money of the World Cup, which is 28,000 euros per competition.
– Of course, I can’t say the amounts, but it is said that the media compensation in women’s ski jumping is about fractions (compared to men’s ski jumping), Executive Director of the Skiing Association Ismo Hämäläinen states.
The size category is also signed by the chairman of the FIS Ski Jumping Committee Mika Kojonkoski.
– Men’s ski jumping has been able to finance the development of women’s ski jumping, but the situation is different in the combined event, says Kojonkoski.
If women’s ski jumping in its 12th World Cup season is completely dependent on the income from men’s ski jumping, it is appropriate to think about what kind of future women have in the already poor combined.
Will the change in attitude translate into money?
Although the financial starting points are not commendable, women’s combined can develop in a completely different attitude climate than women’s ski jumping in the early 2000s.
– 15 years ago, there were very few people who believed in the strong future of women’s ski jumping. Especially in the slightly more experienced group of men, they were of the opinion that the sport is not suitable for women, because it is too dangerous. However, girls and young women have developed tremendously and are able to do technically similar things as men, says Kojonkoski.
In March, the last glass ceiling in ski jumping will be broken, when the women jump from the World Cup points on the flying hill. Kojonkoski reveals that next season the women’s mountain week will be competed in the same way as the men’s in Germany and Austria, mainly at the same competition locations.
– The competitions are on the same days, but in different places: while the men compete in Ober, the women are in Garmisch. The final decision on this has not been made yet. There is more variation on the table in the Austrian side of the tournament, but we are going in this direction.
This season, women and men have competed in the World Cup on the same weekends in Wisla, Lillehammer, Titisee-Neustadt and Willingen.
The formula has been the same every time: women compete in the morning or afternoon, and men in the afternoon or evening. According to Kojonkoski, this is how the FIS has tried to increase the market value of women’s ski jumping, so that the federation could increase the prize money for women in the future.
In terms of a more permanent method of operation, the arrangement of the same weekends also has its downside.
– If the schedules suddenly had to be changed due to weather conditions and the races overlapped, the priority would be clear. Then we would go on men’s terms. Another thing is logistics. In Willingen, it meant, among other things, almost double the number of service facilities, says Kojonkoski.
Hurry up with United
Working as a combined competition manager at FIS Lasse Ottesen says that the association plans to build a combined women’s and men’s World Cup for the coming years using the above-mentioned common template for women and men.
– We follow the concept of cross-country skiing. At the moment, no organizer can organize only the women’s World Cup, because it would only know how to spend money, Ottesen, who won the Olympic silver in ski jumping on the normal hill, admits.
According to Urheilu’s information, the TV contract for the combined women’s world cup is exactly ten thousand euros, i.e. more than ten times smaller than men’s.
Ottesen says that FIS intends to sell women’s and men’s competitions as one package in the future. The current TV contract extends to 2026.
Ottesen describes that while women’s ski jumping has made significant strides since the early 2000s, economic development like that would be a death blow for the women’s combined.
– That is not an option. If that were to happen, I don’t think the species would survive.
Where does the money come from?
Ottesen uploads a tough goal: equal prize money for women and men from 2026 at the latest.
In the Men’s World Cup, approximately 36,000 euros in prize money is distributed in individual competitions. There are 23 individual competitions in the current season’s calendar. The women’s season consists of 11 competitions, each of which has approximately 13,000 euros in prize money.
According to Ottesen, the men’s competition calendar is not growing in the coming years. In order to reach the men’s number of races, the women’s world cup calendar should therefore increase by 12 races, and in addition, the prize pool in each race should increase by 23,000 euros from the current one.
In plain Finnish: just for the women’s individual competitions, where there are now 143,000 euros in prize money, 685,000 euros would have to be found in new money.
– Its realization depends on how much money the men’s and women’s competitions bring in. In order for equal prize money to be possible, the money from the TV contract would not have to be the same, but the gap would have to narrow considerably, says Ottesen.
However, the prize money is only a part of the World Cup organization costs incurred by the national skiing federations.
Travel, accommodation and other costs mean that, on average, each athlete and guardian pays the national association around one thousand euros.
If, for example, two combined men’s World Cup competitions were to be held in Ruka in the future, where the prize money would be 72,000 euros (2 x 36,000), and the aforementioned costs of athletes and guardians were added, the final result would be around 140,000 euros.
If the equality model promoted by FIS were to be realized, this could mean a combined two women’s and two men’s competitions in Ruka and Salpauselä. This would mean additional costs of more than 250,000 euros for the Ski Federation compared to the current one.
– The equation is currently not working. It is clear. I am asking on behalf of all national sports federations who is responsible for the costs, says Ismo Hämäläinen, executive director of the Ski Federation.
Ottesen hopes that FIS would give more financial support to the combined company in the future. The Norwegian names getting women into the Olympics as an even more significant development target.
– The IOC’s decision (not to give women’s combined an Olympic place for 2026) was a slap in the face. Some countries are still considering investing in women’s combined, and the IOC’s decision does not make things easier. We have not given up the fight for the 2026 Olympic place, but the combined women must be included in the Olympics in 2030 at the latest, says Ottesen.