Lydia Lassila has lived in Finland for three years and follows junior snow sports coaching through her children’s hobbies. The Australian is spinning his head.
41-year-old Lydia Lassila has lived with her family in Levi for about three years. TIMO KUNNARI
- Lydia Lassila would take lessons from the Finnish school system for junior coaching.
- The Olympic champion has not been asked to participate in coaching patterns from outside Kittilä.
Australian Lydia Lassila is a former top level freestyle skier. He won Olympic gold in jumping in Vancouver in 2010 and bronze in Sochi in 2014.
He also won, among other things, the Jumping World Cup in the 2008–2009 season and finished second in the Cup in no less than four seasons.
In December 2020, Lydia Lassila packed her husband Laurin and with his two small sons suitcases and ski bags and moved to Levi in Kittilä.
– Time really flies. Three years sounds crazy. I just moved to Finland with a bag of clothes, Lassila tells Iltalehte.
– Now we have a house in Levi, accommodation operations and are actively involved in children’s hobbies.
A popular type
Lydia Lassila is the Olympic champion in freestyle skiing from the 2010 Vancouver Games. PDO
Lassila is a popular person in her home country. He still works as a sports pundit on Australian television.
Lassila has twice been invited to the Australian reality TV show Survivor, and later in October she will be inducted into the Australian Sports Hall of Fame.
Lassila’s husband is Lauri Lassila, a former freestyle top performer. The couple has two children: 8 years old Alek and 12 years old Cain.
Lassila’s family enjoys, among other things, freestyle skiing, downhill skiing, tennis, surfing and ice hockey.
Through the children’s hobbies, the Olympic champion has become familiar with the coaching structures of Finnish sports.
When talking about them, Lassila’s smile freezes.
– The structure of junior coaching is a problem here. In Finland, the system is loose. Of course, there are talented children and young people here, and there is nothing wrong with the circumstances. So why are Finns no longer successful in snow sports? Except in cross-country skiing, Lassila asks pointedly.
Many people fondly remember the days when Tanja Poutiainen-Rinne and Kalle Palander were the world’s elite in the technical disciplines of alpine skiing.
In a humpback landing Janne Lahtela won Olympic gold and quite a lot of other success came. Sami Mustonen, Mikko RonkainenLauri Lassila and partners were at the top of the sport’s world for years.
Not required
Lydia Lassila is still active on the slopes. TIMO KUNNARI
41-year-old Lydia Lassila sees room for improvement in the structure of snow sports coaching.
– In the exercises here, children and young people mainly follow each other, what each other does. Not enough is required of them. The training structure for children and young people is not in order here, says Lassila.
A few years ago, he took his son to a freestyle diving camp in Melbourne during the summer. It wasn’t really a top club.
– Still, there were two coaches involved in the training, says Lassila.
– All jumps were filmed, and they were watched immediately after the performance. Feedback came immediately. The children were really trained there. We did not move forward until the errors had been dealt with.
Learning from school
Lassila’s criticism is sharp, but he justifies his opinion and also makes suggestions for correction.
The Olympic champion finds it contradictory that Finland has a great and functioning school system, but in sports the structures are facing the walls.
– There are high-quality teachers and a good school system here. Why is that system or its good aspects not transferred to sports? Even in school, it is not arranged that children do things with each other. They are taught. Why is it like that in sports here?
– Teachers take your children towards adulthood. This should also be the case with coaches in sports. The good aspects of your school system could be transferred to the coaching of children and young people. Children have fun at school, and it should be the same in sports, Lassila thinks.
Snow is an advantage
Freestyle jumping is a violent and dangerous sport. Lydia Lassila got to know skis for the first time at the age of 17 through a pilot program. The road to becoming an Olympic champion was not easy. PDO
At the Beijing Olympics, among others, New Zealand, Australia and Estonia received medals in freestyle skiing.
Finland didn’t get it. And not even in alpine skiing or snowboarding.
– Finns take too many things for granted in winter sports. Here there is snow on the ground and good training places. That’s a huge advantage in snow sports, says Lassila.
– Athletes from many countries would squeal with joy if they had the same conditions as here in Finland, Lassila continues.
Hasn’t been asked
Lydia Lassila fell during the qualification for the Pyeongchang Olympics. PDO
What is very special about Lassila’s career path is the fact that the sandy beach from Melbourne usually became a winter sports enthusiast and even an Olympic champion.
He jumped on skis at the age of 17, even though he had never seen snow before.
The road to becoming a hero was hard and instructive.
Has anyone from outside Kittilä wanted to discuss matters related to youth coaching with you?
– Is not.
Maybe it would be worth it.