Elisabeth Rehn has worked all her life for equal sport. Mika Lehtimäki’s case was very disappointing for her.
Mika Lehtimäki announced on Monday that he was resigning as head of the Olympic Committee’s top sports unit due to his inappropriate treatment of female employees. In this story, you can read how the case progressed.
Lehtimäki ‘s harassment and inappropriate behavior had already been warned in the autumn, but in early March it was decided to extend his detention until 2024, despite the warning.
The warning received by Lehtimäki was not made public.
Rehn: “Not to be accepted”
Elisabth Rehn is a former Finnish Minister of Defense and a long-standing sports influencer. Pete Anikari
Former and current female sports leaders wrote An open letter to the Olympic Committee and the mediawhich calls for an end to harassment in sport and good brotherhoods within it.
In the letter, the women who worked in sports share their experiences of harassment and discrimination at work.
Iltalehti reached out to sign the letter Elisabeth Rehnin to comment on the uproar.
According to Rehn, the former Finnish Minister of Defense and a long-standing sports influencer, he is saddened how equality in the world of sports will be at such a poor level in 2022.
– I have been sorry to hear how things are still being obscured about how women are treated in sport.
Mika Lehtimäki has felt downplayed. Jussi Eskola
He hopes things will change so that everyone can enjoy the sport in the same way.
– I’ve been working all my life to get this kind of culture out, Rehn says.
– I really love and respect sports a lot. I don’t want anything bad for the Olympic Committee, but I also don’t want such side effects to be accepted, Rehn says.
“Exercise of power”
Former head of the Finnish Sports Confederation Pirjo Puskala is also one of the signatories of the letter.
In the 1990s, Puskala was the Finnish Equality Manager for Sports.
Puskala cannot answer the question of how keeping the Lehtimäki case out of the public has benefited the people or parties who knew about it.
– This is an abuse of your own position. For example, trying to turn things around so that women who have experienced harassment would have wanted to keep the matter a secret is a matter of rolling responsibility over their own subordinates.
Puskala emphasizes that many women involved in sports may not be able to make their voices heard in the same way, because there is a culture of silence in the industry and fear of losing one’s position if harassment is made public.
– We retirees dare to comment more on this, because our own career in the field is no longer in jeopardy. Surely in the past, some of us have also had to remain silent in order to keep our own jobs.
Puskala says that she is really proud of the women who have exposed Lehtimäki’s misuse.
– It’s really great that we have dared to address this. Anything really doesn’t have to take place at the level of work and everyday life and these things need to be able to be brought up.
The Board of the Olympic Committee will hold an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday. Mika Lehtimäki has promised to give a statement on the matter through his lawyer on Wednesday.
Jan Vapaavuori, Chairman of the Olympic Committee, at a press conference on the matter. Jussi Eskola