Santtu Silvennoinen
The start of the cross-country skiing competition season has to be postponed, writes Santtu Silvennoinen.
Vuokatti could slip lingonberries into his mouth during the cross-country Finnish Cup competitions. Illustration picture. Ismo Pekkarinen / AOP
– Is it a roller skiing competition, asked the former top athlete from Pirkanmaa on Monday.
– No. It’s about the opening competitions of the cross-country skiing Suomen Cup in Vuokatti, I answered.
– What? For real?
This is a familiar thing that we southerners wonder when the domestic cross-country skiing season starts in Kainuu at the turn of October-November.
Last year, and especially this year, there was a special reason to be surprised, because the weather has been exceptionally warm all over the country. Natural snow in Finland on November 1, 2025 is not like an arm’s length in Lapland. In Kilpisjärvi, the snow depth is seven centimeters.
Descriptive for global warming is when Yleisradio’s reporter who reported on Vuokatti’s Suomen Cup visited the party in the middle of Saturday’s TV broadcast.
Perhaps the world’s best artificial snow production and snow storage have made it possible for ten artificial snow slopes to be opened in Finland. The longest is 3.7 kilometers in Vuokatti and the shortest is 500 meters in Rovaniemi. In Ruka and Vihti, the tracks have had to be closed due to melting.
In terms of practicing the sport and the future in general, artificial snow slopes are life rafts. It’s great that already in October in Finland you can ski regardless of the weather, but competitive skiing between October and November is not from anywhere.
– The conditions do not serve the athletes or the maintenance, says Iltalehti’s skiing expert Pirjo Muranen.
– The arrival of winters starts to shift and shift, so what’s the point of starting the competition season now? I don’t think there is any obstacle to postponing the start of the season, the Lapland continues.
A Finnish skier contacted from Vuokatti puts it even more directly.
– I understand very well why there is competition here already – it is because of the international competition program. But this is complete stupidity, which has very little to do with international top skiing, the skier declares.
The final competition of the Cross-Country World Cup will be skied this season on March 22, and the final event of the Finnish Cup on April 11. Especially in Lapland, there are plenty of ski resorts throughout April.
It would be very reasonable for the international competition season to start a week or two later than the current one. Didn’t even ski before the artificial snow season in December, except for two mc weekends.
With a later start of the season and a reasonable choice of competition venues, it would probably be possible to guarantee better conditions.
