Finnish finances: The thing with Rane, Finnair and Red Bull was long ago and there was really nothing that could had done to make it work. It was also the time, Finnish ski jumping was not yet in same kind of financial troubles they are now.
Last winter can also not be blamed solely financial reasons. They had enough training camp days outside of Finland during the summer and autumn and when they were not able to have snow jumps in those three weeks, it was partly their own choice. They wanted Ramsau and no-where else, Finnjumping offered Rovaniemi or Ruka there many other national teams also trained (at least Japan I think), but they didn't want to. And the rumour is, that coaches even forbid jumpers to go and jump on their own at Rovaniemi.
Re doping: Lahti 2001 was the national trauma. Others may well forget it, Finns will never. It is still very sore spot. And it still goes on in courtrooms and just last summer we even had a first real casualty of all that shit when Mika Myllylä died. Some of the others are still not in that much better place in their lives than he was.
Sponsors: Sport sponsoring is down in every sport in Finland. Few years ago it was the trend to sponsor more art etc. than sports and even though sponsoring art has also come down, the money is not back to sports. Sponsoring in general is just out. For hockey (the Finnish Elite League teams) the most important sponsors in Finland are brewers and companies that want local good-will. No brewer is idiot enough to want their beer brand anywhere near ski jumpers. The probability of bad press is just too huge. They do want them near their energy drink brands but because none of Finnish brands is much sold outside of Finland, they do not want to pay very much of it. And then they do, they are more likely to be personal sponsors (Rane didn't have that yellow water bottle with him every time in later years at podium in accident...)
Ski jumping is also out of the view starting last winter in Finland. You can only see six competitions free from TV (Ruka and Lahti from YLE and Four Hills from MTV3) all the else are in (not cheap) pay TV. If you are a Finnish sport fan who for example likes hockey and ski jumping and want to watch FEL, Hockey world championships and ski jumping from TV, you end up paying much over 50 euro a month from different pay-TV canals. That has put the exposure down and when people try to decide, if they want to see hockey or ski jumping, many don't pay for ski jumping and save that 30 euro a month. Sponsors are again not interested of sports few watch. Of course also Finns tanking and general consensus that current jumpers are boring (most Finns wouldn't know anyone but maybe Anssi from picture and maybe not even from name) and some of them are very against doing much of anything to advertise themselves or to give any exposure to their sponsors.
Finnjumping: Now Finnjumping is trying to get a chairman outside of ski jumping with very good sport and public relations. His employer just has to agree, but that could hopefully be something positive. His name is Jukka-Pekka Vuori and he works for ski jumpers current main sponsor Fonecta. We will see.
Continuing with Niemelä is a surprise. Unfortunately I'm not at all positive he can have a fresh start, accept the current realities and most importantly patch up his relationships to personal coaches (the start at Rovaniemi 'peace conference' is rumoured to had been anything but positive.) Because of financials, the personal coaches importance will grow and Pekka's work will be more to keep the handles. And he seems to very strongly want to have just the opposite with his 'own athletes' with whom he works closely. And that will not happen. He will not get Anssi to forsake his own coaches. Matti quit, so there is only Havu left in Kuopio. At least he has a good relationship with Ville's dad so basically Pekka's team now consists of Havu and Ville, maybe also Olli. Because now there really will be less training camps, Pekka will have little to do with others every day training during summer, so he just has to accept the situation there he has to choose his team based on results, not to develop the team he likes to travel with (that was something he, publicly, was very happy with after kicking Hapa (and Kalle) out.) And I'm sure Havu was not happy with his last season. Does he still really have trust on Pekka as his personal coach?
Hapa: And then there is Hapa
Total enigma in every way as always. If he trains hard and is motivated, he could easily be the best Finn and being in top four shouldn't be even hard for him. And it is very much a question, if Hapa and Pekka can even be at the same room. And what Hapa's possible real comeback would do to the team. :neinnein: And no, Pekka's and Hapa's very bad relationship is not something press has just made up. In Finland press does spread rumours, they do very delicate headings (with the question mark in the end to make it legally sound) and they speculate. But when they do give direct quotes from someone, those quotes are real and accurately what the person said. And unfortunately that story few weeks ago was full of direct quotes from both of them... And apparently the reporter didn't even publish some that went to more personal level.
On lighter note. We do have a confirmation, that Hapa is serious (at least on now.) Not only does he train with Kalle Keituri, they also do train starting 8 am. Really, at mornings :aetsch: That just has to mean that Hapa is dead serious and motivated
: