The combined team may drop out of the Olympic Games. A final decision is expected in June.
The Finnish heroes of the united are threatened with a terrible fate.
– When the season ends, the gloves fall off and we wait until the summer before we can put the stick in the cross, sighs the Finnish head coach Antti Kuisma.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has sacrificed to drop the combined Olympic program from the 2030 Games.
– No one can say for sure what that decision might be.
Estimates have been made that combined has too few enthusiasts worldwide, the sport’s commercial appeal is small and its interest as a TV product is rather scarce.
– The competition between the sports is growing all the time, the venues for the combined performance are quite expensive, the sport is not the easiest and it is practiced mainly only in the Nordic countries, a great athlete Ilkka Herola evaluates the reasons for the poor status of the species.
Inequality
Is this the last time the combined men will be at the Olympics? In the picture Wille Karhumaa (left), coach Antti Kuisma, Eero Hirvonen and Ilkka Herola. Pasi Liesimaa
Combined is the only Winter Olympic sport in which only men compete.
– What separates us from, say, hill jumping or biathlon, which are also somewhat marginal sports, is that we have lost to those sports when we have only men participating, Herola admits.
– The joint would have had double potential if both sexes had been involved. Makihyppy woke up to parity very late and we came in the wake even later, he adds.
For the first time, women were at the Ski Jumping World Championships in 2009 and at the Olympics in 2014.
Women competed in combined for the first time at the World Cup level in 2021.
– There is quite a lot of lobbying within the sport, especially for women. A clear message has been sent to the IOC, says Kuisma.
The IOC has stated that if the 2030 Olympic Games are contested in the combined event, women will also be included. There is no such option that the combined team would only have men in the French five-ring races four years from now.
– Decisions go to politics. I don’t think that other things have much of an impact, Kuisma says.
A huge success
According to Dagbladet, Eero Hirvonen’s medal race was particularly interesting to Japanese TV viewers. Pasi Liesimaa
Last week’s combined normal hill Olympic competition on Wednesday gave the athletes hope.
According to the Norwegian Dagbladet, the event was watched by 18 million in Japan, 3–4 million in Germany and 150,000–200,000 TV viewers in Norway. Japan has about 123, Germany about 84 and Norway about 5.6 million inhabitants.
– A particularly interesting and exciting day of competition, the chairman of the International Ski Federation FIS assesses, Kuisma reports.
Fis drum Johan Eliasch followed the events in Val di Fiemme together with the chairman of the IOC Kirsty Coventry with.
According to Dagbladet, Coventry had liked what he saw.
– Let’s trust that justice will prevail and the oldest Olympic sport will remain in the program, Kuisma sighs.
Action stopped
Ilkka Herola’s future is not affected by the IOC’s decision. Pasi Liesimaa
According to Kuisma’s assessment, Finnish national team activities will be at a standstill after this season until the IOC decides on the fate of the sport in June.
Herola says that the IOC’s decision will not affect his future as a top athlete.
– In any case, it’s my last time at the Olympics. I’m already prepared, whatever the situation may be, to have a different summer. Let’s see in the fall what kind of national team activities we have, says Herola.
On the same lines, there is a recent normal mountain Olympic bronze medalist Eero Hirvonen.
– In this situation, I don’t think it will affect next season. But in a longer run it can have an effect, commented Hirvonen.