Node Salminen
Squash player Emilia Soini wouldn’t even make it to the finish line in the finals of the international bowling tournament, writes news manager Solmu Salminen, who competes in the bowling championship league herself.
Emilia Soin, who was left without a scholarship, thinks that bowling is not a sport. TOMMI TAPOLA/SQUASH ASSOCIATION
The small but strong Finnish sport of bowling found itself in the national spotlight on Wednesday, when squash player Emilia Soini decided to direct her anger at it by firing a gun.
Soini missed out on an athlete grant from the Ministry of Education and Culture, and apparently upset about this, he commented on the grant decisions of four top Finnish bowlers with the accompanying words “fuck what a joke”. According to Soin, bowling is not a sport.
The original whistleblower in the matter may have been Sanoma’s sports reporter, who prominently dealt with bowling scholarships in his opinion text without having expressed his own opinion on the matter per se.
Four world championships from the same Games make Essi Pakarinen one of Finland’s most successful athletes last year. FINNISH BOWLING ASSOCIATION
Soini should be nominated at the upcoming Sports Gala for special recognition for the most outrageous Finnish sports moment of the year. The Finnish bowlers, led by four-time World Cup winner Essi Pakarinen and singles winner Luukas Väänänen, created a sensation and the history of the sport. Bowling has received a rare two nominations at the Sports Gala. The amazingness of the performance is not revealed by the results news, which does not take into account how strong Asian countries have become in bowling, which is already the power sport of the parent country, the United States. In Europe, too, the competition has intensified.
Soin’s bowling is made even more difficult by the fact that it came from within another sport community that certainly identifies with bowling. Squash players know what it’s like to struggle with new enthusiasts and junior players in the pressure of bigger sports and screen time. Like bowling, it is a sport that every Finn knows and that once flourished, but whose future seems very uncertain.
Bowling’s status as a sport is a fairly simple matter to deal with. At the highest national league level, a bowler must be able to throw a seven-kilogram reactive urethane tool three meters in the air over the second lane, because the track oil has worn out. In order to make a result, the player often has a margin of error of five centimeters in the lateral direction on the 18-meter distance. To this is added the regulation of the speed of the ball with an accuracy of 0.1 km/h and the requirements for changing the axis of rotation and the amount of rotation as needed. During the last matches, there are about 15 hours of bowling over the weekend.
The Ballmaster Open, which is one of the biggest bowling tournaments in Europe, will be played in Helsinki this week. The first prize of 10,000 euros is won by the player who bowls a maximum of 23 sets during the finals.
Squash player Soini thinks bowling is a joke. He himself would not be able to throw 23 sets with a bowling ball that would meet the competition requirements and be made to order for him. Soini would not exceed the 80 point mark.
Luukas Väänänen won the men’s singles world championship when he was only 20 years old. In the final match, Väänänen defeated another Finn, professional player Tomas Käyhkö. FINNISH BOWLING ASSOCIATION
Scholarship decisions are important, even decisive, for individual athletes. However, in Finnish sports policy, they alone do not determine how many medals Finland will receive and in which games. If Finland were smart, it would understand how to introduce bowling to the Summer Olympics. It is one of the most familiar and popular sports in the world, despite the fact that most of the series are played for fun. It also says something that even though competitive bowling is not as popular as it was in the 70s, the professional tour PBA has firmly maintained its presence on American television broadcasts.
Emilia Soini dishonored her own sport among other small and medium-sized sports. The president of the Squash League also came to a similar conclusion, who separately apologized to the Bowling Association for the use of Soin.
Since Soini, despite his views, is a successful top athlete, we should hope for a brighter attitude towards the future and the wisdom to repair the possible damage he has caused to his own sports career.
The author competes in the men’s bowling SM league.