A Couple of Exceptionally Important Matters

Good morning, dear readers. I have two extremely important things to share with you today.

The first important matter is an announcement. As you know, I have been writing a Finnish-language parallel blog, with content highly similar to this English-language one, although the posts have mostly been separate.

However, I have now decided that, moving forward, I will primarily write about topics related to Finland in Finnish and international topics in English. Of course, for good reason, I may still publish the same articles in both languages or, for example, write about domestic politics in English if I find it appropriate. However, as a general rule, I will follow the approach I just described.

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My second important matter concerns the recently uncovered cheating by Norwegian ski jumpers. This is significant because Norway has long been both a true superpower in winter sports and a nation with an unblemished reputation. This was especially true after the Finnish cross-country team was caught using doping a couple of decades ago.

However, the recently exposed ski jumping suit fraud demonstrates that Norwegians are not inherently any cleaner than anyone else. It also reinforces my belief that their cross-country skiers used banned substances to enhance their performance in the early 2000s, just like many others did.

That being said, this does not mean that the Norwegian athletes did not deserve the flood of medals their male skiers claimed at the World Championships in Trondheim, which concluded yesterday. Nor does it diminish the achievements of Johannes Klæbo, the dominant skier of this era.

Of course, one can always speculate that the winner of the interval-start race in the classic technique would most likely have been Iivo Niskanen—had he been able to compete in the World Championships. Unfortunately for us Finns, medals at major competitions are awarded among those who participate, and in that field, Klæbo was superior to everyone else every single time. That was truly amazing!

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Preview of the Trondheim World Ski Championships
The Relationship Between the Professor and Teemu Selänne

Iranian Surge to Finland

The Finnish Wrestling Federation has been seeking a head coach. A total of around 80 applicants expressed interest in the position, of which as many as 50 turned out to be Iranian. This is surprising, even though Iran is among the strongest countries in the world in both wrestling styles.

However, the chairman of the Finnish Wrestling Federation, Pekka Paavola, speculated that not every applicant's motivation is driven by a burning passion for developing Finnish wrestling. Or even for working in wrestling at all.

Instead, he noted, "Iran is certainly known as a country where wrestling is a huge and successful sport, and of course, there are many good coaches as a result. I can't definitively assess their reasons for applying, but perhaps access to the Schengen area is an attraction for some applicants."

This may be hinted at by the fact that some of the Iranian applications were written in Iran's own languages, such as Farsi or Arabic, which naturally gave the recruiters an indication of the applicant's ability to use English as a working language in Finland. Therefore, they are unlikely to secure the position in my northern homeland.

It remains to be seen who will eventually be selected. However, in advance, the current executive director of the Wrestling Federation, Pasi Sarkkinen, can be seen as the frontrunner. Sarkkinen previously served as head coach of Greco-Roman wrestling from 2001 to 2004. During that time, Finland won five senior-level championship medals and its most recent Olympic medal was brought home by Marko Yli-Hannuksela from Athens in 2004.

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