Olympics don't mean everything in ski sports

The Olympics put athletes from less mainstream sports into limelight for two weeks. Sports like luge, skeleton, and bobsled, or the likes of shooting or fencing in the Summer Games, hardly get lots of worldwide exposure apart from their Olympic events which are broadcast on major channels around the world. Even sports like athletics and swimming are more or less niche sports outside the major events, and the likes of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps wouldn't be such huge stars without their Olympic success, and to a lesser extent their World Championship success.

Ski sports are highly popular in Central and Northern Europe with lots of media coverage even outside the Olympics and the Worlds. But outside their heartlands, the ski sports become mainstream only once in four years during the Winter Olympics. And in the eyes of those once-in-four-years fans, even the greatest career can be seen as mediocre if the success at the Olympics has eluded.

Olympic and World Championship success is a great way to determine athletes' greatness in sports like athletics and swimming. Those are sports where athletes set their goals in succeeding at the major events. I don't really like putting Olympic success way over World Championship success because an unfortunate injury may ruin your Olympic season and four years is a long period until your next chance at the Olympics. You may get fewer chances at the Olympics, though it still takes the same effort to win at the Worlds. Though winning gold medals at two consecutive Olympics probably makes you a bigger legend than gold medals from three consecutive world championships, although both achievements take the same time.

Ski sports are different from athletics or swimming. Regardless of the venue, the running track is 400 meters and the Olympic pool is 50 meters. In ski sports, every venue is different, favoring different athletes. Some alpine skiers do better on steep slopes, others on flat ones. In cross-country skiing a tough course allows the athletes with better endurance to break away from the field while easier courses allow the best sprinters to stay in the leading group throughout the race to win it in the last kilometer. And every ski jumper has hills that suit them better and hills that don't suit them that well.

Besides, the ski sports have highly important season-long circuits, the World Cup tours. In a season-long circuit you will face venues that suit you better and venues that don't suit you so well. The World Cup rewards those who can do well at most venues and have the consistency to perform at their best throughout the winter. You can see one-hit wonders winning Olympic gold medals, though you can't see them winning World Cup titles.

I am one who puts the World Cup titles above everything else in ski sports. If you're good on certain types of hills or courses, you can win multiple gold medals in your career but winning World Cup titles requires a more complete set of skills and season-long consistency. Four-time Olympic silver medalist and the 2003 World gold medalist in slalom, Ivica Kostelić, has said the lack of an Olympic gold medal doesn't matter that much because he's won the biggest prize in the sport, the World Cup overall title. Olympic and World Championship medals are awarded in single disciplines; the overall World Cup title requires success in multiple disciplines in the same season. Kostelić skipping his preferred disciplines slalom and combined at the 2011 Worlds after the super-G bronze medal in order to concentrate on winning the World Cup overall title further highlights the importance of the big crystal globe.

For sure the Olympic and World Championship medals aren't meaningless alongside the World Cup titles. Firstly, especially the Olympics are the most-viewed competitions in the sport. I bet most Americans know Ted Ligety as a two-time Olympic gold medalist rather than as a five-time World Cup giant slalom champion.

Secondly, the major championships are a different challenge compared to the World Cup tour. If you're dominating your sport, you don't need to bring out your best at every race to win World Cup titles. At the Olympics or Worlds, you can't win with mediocrity. Lara Gut is leading the super-G standings in the World Cup, yet 0.12 seconds separated her from the Olympic gold medal, eventually finishing fourth and missing the bronze medal by 0.01 seconds.

Seeing athletes with a big disparity between their World Cup and major championship achievements probably tells something about them. Peter Fill has only three wins on the World Cup tour, though he's won two titles in downhill and one in alpine combined. He doesn't finish in the front very often, though his consistency has won him World Cup titles. Though that's not how you succeed in major championships; Fill's medal record of one silver and one bronze in the Worlds is quite mediocre for one with three small crystal globes.

On the other hand, Mario Matt never won a crystal globe in the World Cup and finished only twice in the top three in the slalom standings, though his two World gold medals and one Olympic gold medal in the span of 13 years plus 15 race wins in the World Cup surely put him above some of the World Cup champions whose heyday lasted only a few years and who never broke into double digits in their victory count.

The Olympics and the Worlds don't present the greatest challenges in the sport to athletes. When the venues need to accommodate men's and women's races in different disciplines, not all major championship slopes can be among the most challenging ones in the sport. The challenge to the athletes isn't even that high on the list of priorities when commercial interests play a big role when selecting the host venue. The Olympics may have the most important single races for the athletes but the Jeongseon downhill course doesn't reflect that, being among the easiest in top-level ski racing.

I am one of those who put winning the Hahnenkamm downhill at least on the level of an Olympic or World gold medal if not even above. That race is the biggest challenge in alpine skiing. A major gold medal doesn't prove you as a skier the way winning on the Streif does. A flawless and fast run on an easy course can win you a gold medal but you may be struggling with the challenges the most challenging courses present. And Hahnenkamm matters to skiers; that's where every downhill skier wants to win.

Didier Cuche won four World Cup titles in downhill plus one in super-G and one in giant slalom between 2007 and 2011. Still his medal record isn't that exceptional; one gold, two silver, and one bronze medal in the Worlds and an Olympic silver medal dating back to 1998. However his four wins on the Streif between 2008 and 2012 show why he was the best downhill skier of that era. You could beat him on easier courses, like Wengen where he never won, though he dominated the most challenging courses.

It's difficult, or rather impossible, to put achievements in any absolute order. I'm one who puts World Cup titles above gold medals, though you need to look at the bigger picture. Sports are about winning; achieving World Cup titles purely with consistency and never succeeding big time at major championships isn't that impressive while a great medal record can make up the lack of crystal globes. Elisabeth Görgl never won a World Cup title, though has a solid medal record from 2009 to 2011 and her double gold medal at the 2011 Worlds shows that success wasn't a fluke. That puts her above some of the weaker World Cup champions in my eyes.

I truly admire Marc Girardelli's career. Five overall titles in the World Cup, two discipline titles in downhill, one in giant slalom, three in slalom, three times the runner-up in super-G, and four times topping the combined standings. That's accompanied by 11 World Championship medals from all five disciplines, including three gold medals in combined and one in slalom plus he's one of the rare skiers to win the downhills in Kitzbühel and Wengen the same season, winning actually two downhill races in Wengen in 1989. But he never won the gold medal at the Olympics, achieving only the silver medals in super-G and giant slalom in 1992. However, the lack of Olympic gold doesn't affect to my impression of his career. The sport is about more than two weeks every four years.

It's the same in other ski sports too. Janne Ahonen is a two-time World Cup overall champion in ski jumping and the five Four Hills titles stand out the most from his resume. In addition to that his medal record features two individual World gold medals, though he's never won at the Olympics or even achieved an individual medal. Still, his achievements show he can deliver under pressure. If anything, the Four Hills titles have required the same abilities than any major gold medal but also consistency. One single bad day can ruin your Four Hills campaign, at the Olympics or Worlds there's still another competition. However needing to have consistency for one week prevents the kind of flukish wins you can see at the Olympics or Worlds. Yes, even Thomas Diethart wasn't a fluke but the best ski jumper in the world for one week.

There's been criticism over Kaisa Mäkäräinen's performance in biathlon in PyeongChang where she failed once again to win an Olympic medal. Some of the criticism is justified. The best result of a 10th place isn't really what you'd expect from the World Cup leader. But never winning an Olympic medal isn't really such a big failure in the big picture of her career. She's won two World Cup overall titles, five discipline titles, a World gold medal, and a total of six medals at the Worlds. If I had to point out a failure from her resume, it's winning only one major gold medal despite all her World Cup success. An Olympic gold medal would have fixed that, a silver or bronze medal wouldn't have. But who am I to blame one of the top biathletes of this decade?

Neutral Russian hockey team is not truly neutral

The International Olympic Committee has decided to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee because of the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping system in Russia. Individual Russian athletes may still participate in the Winter Olympics in February as IOC-invited "Olympic Athletes from Russia" in both individual and team competitions, yet without Russia's national symbols.

I think the IOC's decision is the right one. Sports were used as a political tool in Russia, and worse still, to achieve the aims Russian sports organizations resorted on cheating with the help of the government. Russia's doping problem is not just an issue of sports organizations, it's a political issue. The only way to penalize Russia was to ban the Russian team and the national symbols at the Olympics.

The IOC's decision still leaves the door open for a neutral Russian team in hockey. Whether or not there will be a Russian hockey team under the Olympic flag is likely a highly political decision. Will Vladimir Putin's government decide to boycott the Games after the humiliating ban on national symbols, or do they want to show that nothing will stop Russia and will send the hockey players to PyeongChang?

Given the nature of Olympic hockey, a neutral team from a banned country isn't really a neutral team. Russian players would still represent Russia, even if they didn't have the national symbols. Clean individual athletes deserve to be at the Olympics but no Russian national teams should be invited to PyeongChang.

There are other team sports like curling or bobsled that are more comparable to individual sports than hockey. For example, in curling there are multiple teams in a country competing for the Olympic spot. On the other hand, in hockey players from multiple teams are aiming to make it into the Olympic team. Curling and bobsled teams are more individual and less of national teams than the hockey team is. Curling and bobsled teams can be neutral, a hockey team can't truly be.

Relay teams aren't truly neutral either

It will be interesting to see if the Olympic Athletes from Russia can compete in relays and other team competitions of individual sports. In my opinion, the Russian athletes stop being neutral if they are competing in relays against other countries.

What makes relays different from the likes of curling and bobsled is that relay teams are more of national teams. Sports like cross-country skiing are individual sports by definition, relays are just a way to enable team competitions.

The IOC's decision allows neutral Russian athletes to get invited to both individual and team competitions, though the invitations are at the IOC's absolute discretion. Even if Russia wanted to send a neutral hockey team, it's still up to the IOC to approve.

I hope the IOC will not invite Russian athletes in sports where that would lead into having a de facto national team, just without national symbols. Clean individual athletes deserve to be invited, disguised national teams not.

NHL's Olympic decision disappointing but understandable

The National Hockey League has announced it won't break the 2017-18 season to allow its players participate in the Winter Olympics in February. This will be the first time since 1998 when the NHL players won't participate in the Olympics, ending the streak of five Winter Games with nations represented by their best players.

The Olympics in February have seen the players in a good form playing for their nations. The same can't be said about the World Cup of Hockey which is played in the preseason. However, the Olympic dates have been problematic for the NHL. With less than two months to the playoffs, a key player's injury from the Olympics can derail a team's Stanley Cup bid. Also, February is an important month for the NHL as the NFL season has ended and the MLB season hasn't started yet.

With NHL participation, the Olympics have been the best possible international tournament for hockey. The best players playing for their nations at an event as prestigious as the Olympics with global coverage. However the Olympics have not increased the NHL's viewership, making the league not willing to break the season.

The International Olympic Committee has previously paid the insurance and travel expenses of the NHL players in order to get them to the Olympics. A practice unique to hockey among Olympic sports, the IOC isn't willing to pay those expenses in 2018, making the NHL reluctant to have the Olympic break. The International Ice Hockey Federation offered to pay those fees, yet the NHL doesn't want to use IIHF's money for the Olympic participation but wants the IOC to pay for it. In addition to that, the NHL wanted additional monetary compensation from the IOC for the lose revenue during the Olympics. Alternatively the NHL would have liked the official Olympic partner status to use it for commercial purposes.

The NHL players want to play at the Olympics. The NHL has acknowledged that and offered the Olympic participation if the NHLPA eliminated the opt-out clause in the collective bargaining agreement, extending it to 2022. However the NHLPA didn't accept that.

NHL has all the rights to ask for compensation for its players Olympic participation. While the ideal of the Olympics is a festival of sports without business interests, the reality is different. The IOC may officially be a nonprofit organization but it's a huge business, and probably second only to the FIFA in most corrupt major sports organizations. Why should the NHL sacrifice their own business interests to support an event that generates money for the IOC? The NHL did the right thing by not making the IIHF pay for NHL's Olympic participation; that money would have been away from developing hockey worldwide.

Olympics with NHL participation have been the ideal international hockey tournament and it's a pity if the NHL participation ends. But I can't blame the NHL for not participating the Olympics since there is not that much for the NHL to benefit. It's up to the IOC if they want the Olympics to be a pseudo-amateur event with no participation compensation, or if they want to have all the best athletes and are willing to share the revenue with other organizations to make that happen.

The NHL may be more willing to participate the 2022 Olympics, in order to promote itself in the Chinese market. However what I want to see the least is the NHL deciding case-by-case which Olympics to participate. I want to see NHL either committing long-term to the Olympics or starting to build up the brand of the World Cup of Hockey to make it the most important international hockey tournament. Then again, hardly anything can prevent the NHL from participating certain Olympics it feels important if the NHL pays all expenses itself.

Olympic Agenda 2020 approved

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved the Olympic Agenda 2020. The recommendations of the agenda include reducing the cost of the games and improving their legacy as well as some ethical recommendations.

One of the recommendations was allowing to have some sports organized outside the host city and in exceptional cases outside the host country. That would enable more use of existing venues. I hope the compactness of the Olympics doesn't suffer a lot from that. In my opinion, all sports should be within a reasonable distance from the host city, say three hours by car, unless there are some geographic reasons, like sailing far from an inland host city. I am fine with having some sports outside the host city, as long as there remains a clear main host city, hosting most important sports like athletics, swimming, and basketball. Though, in the case of team sports played in multiple arenas, I think also other sports than football could have matches in different cities around the country. For example, in the case of ice hockey, it doesn't always make sense to have two hockey arenas in the host city but another round robin group could be played in another city with an existing hockey arena.

As for allowing having sports outside the host country, I think it is a good decision. If a host city is situated close to a border and there is some existing venue right behind the border, it doesn't make sense to build a new venue to the host country. Yet those venues abroad should be within a reasonable distance. Again, I think something like three hours by car should be the maximum. And there should be no visa requirements between the countries where the games are hosted.

Another recommendation aimed to cut the costs is to move from a sport-based to an event-based programme. Instead of capping the number of sports, the number of events will be capped as well as the number of athletes and coaches. The organizing committees are allowed to propose additional events to their edition of the Olympic Games.

I am not so sure capping the number of events and athletes is a better way to prevent the costs increasing than capping the number of sports. To fit the new limits, athletics and swimming may need to drop some events off. I don't like the idea of dropping triple jump and race walking off as they are distinguishable events within athletics. Besides, I doubt reducing the number of athletics and swimming events reduces the costs a lot, the athletics and swimming venues are still needed. I think reducing the number of sports and thus the number of venues needed would cut the costs more effectively. As for the organizing committees being allowed to propose events, it enables having sports of local interest but I don't like the idea of adding sports only for one Olympics. I would prefer a stable Olympic programme with new sports being aimed to become permanent Olympic sports.

What do I dislike about the Olympics?

The Winter Olympics will begin next weekend in Sochi. There has been controversy about the huge budget of the games, especially as all construction work will not be finished before the games. I must say I don’t like about Sochi Olympics being Putin’s expensive PR show but there are also other things I don’t like about in the Olympics.

I think the Olympic Gold is an overvalued achievement in many sports. As a Finn, I can give a great example of an all-time-great athlete who has never won an Olympic Gold, let alone any individual Olympic medal. He is Janne Ahonen, one of the greatest ski jumpers of the last two decades. He has eight World Championship medals, including four gold medals, and he has won the Four Hills Tournament for a record of five times. But his best individual results at the Olympics have been three fourth places. Ski jumping is a good example of a sport where there are a handful of guys who can win the competition and even more guys who have potential to make the podium. It is hard for the best athletes like Ahonen to stand out there. Still, with his consistency he has that excellent record from the World Championships. And moreover, his consistency has won him the Four Hills titles, there are jumpers who can beat him in one competition but lack the consistency to do it over four competitions.

And that is something I dislike about the Olympics. In ski sports, the Olympics are like any World Cup event. In ski jumping, I prefer the Ski-Flying World Championships over other major championships; there they have four competition rounds instead of the usual two. I think that is how it should be also at the Olympics. As the games last over two weeks, for sure there would be time to have four-round competitions over two days. To take a comparison from men’s tennis, in Grand Slam events you need to win three sets instead of the usual two, separating the truly best players from others. I think the Olympics should have competition formats that separate the truly best athletes from others.

Another thing I dislike about the Olympics is the size and huge cost of the games. Countries willing to improve their image, like China and Russia, are willing to sink huge amounts of money to host the games at extravagant arenas. That is hard for other countries to repeat, the costs of the Beijing 2008 summer games were €32 billion whereas the London games four years later cost “only” €10.1 billion. And the huge cost of the games made local people vote against the Munich bid for the 2022 winter games and also Stockholm’s ruling party withdrew the bid for those games.

I think downsizing the Olympics would be very important. It would reduce not only the construction costs but also the maintaining costs after the games. Too often the Olympics leave “white elephants”, sports venues without use. That’s why I was upset to read that the IOC president Bach has suggested adding baseball, softball, and squash to the 2020 summer games. That might not be a problem for Tokyo but what about the next host city. I think the games need to be downsized so that more cities are capable of hosting them.

But, after all, the Olympics are all about business. You could see that when the IOC were planning to drop wrestling from the games and replace it with baseball with star athletes. Or when they added golf to the Olympics, despite the fact that the Olympics will be more of an exhibition event for golfers whose aim is in the major championships. The Olympics may try to keep up an anti-commercialism image by not allowing advertising in athletes clothing or at the competition venues. Yet the Olympics have huge sponsorship deals with e.g. Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, and athletes are allowed to appear in adverts as long as they are IOC sponsors’ adverts.

Well, is there anything good at the Olympics then? For most athletes, the Olympics are the big goal in their career and they aim to peak during the games. So we will have high-quality sports for over two weeks. Especially great at the Olympics is ice hockey. The Olympics are the only event where the national teams have the best possible teams.

My view on 2020 Summer Olympics bids

The host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics will be elected on 7 September 2013. The candidate cities are Istanbul in Turkey, Tokyo in Japan, and Madrid in Spain. Tokyo was already my initial favorite, I like Japan and I believe they can host well big events. But I also liked the idea of Istanbul hosting the Olympics; Turkey hasn't hosted major sports events very often. Madrid was my least favorite to host the games; Spain is the latest country of the bidders to have hosted Summer Olympics, in Barcelona in 1992.

Talking about the venues, Madrid is my favorite because they have more venues already existing than Tokyo or Istanbul. Too often Olympics leave venues that become white elephants with little use after the games. As Madrid has so many of the venues already now, I believe the risk of white elephant syndrome is the smallest.

Madrid is also a compact project. All of the venues located in Madrid would be within 10 kilometers from the city center. On the other hand, Madrid is the only candidate city located in the inland. That's why the sailing events have to be held in Valencia, over 300 kilometers away from Madrid. Istanbul and Tokyo could host also sailing events in the host city.

Also Tokyo would be a compact project. 85% of competition venues and 70% of training venues would be within 8 kilometers from the Olympic Village. Istanbul wouldn't be as compact a project as the venues would be within 30 kilometers from the Olympic Village.

The Olympic Stadium is maybe the most prominent venue of the Olympics. Istanbul is planning an unusual solution for the opening and closing ceremonies, they are not going to have them at the athletics stadium like usually. Instead they are going to build a 70,000-seat stadium for the ceremonies even though the existing Atatürk Olympic Stadium for athletics would have 76,000 seats. That would be only the third time when the athletics stadium isn’t the Olympic Stadium at the Summer Olympics, the Vélodrome de Vincennes was the Olympic Stadium at the 1900 Paris Olympics and the Maracanã football stadium will be the Olympic Stadium at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

The ceremony stadium in Istanbul would be situated at the Bosphorus and there would be a view to the Bosphorus. It would definitely look great but my initial worry was whether there would be post-Olympics need for a stadium that isn’t made to accommodate a running track or a football pitch. At least they would reduce the seating capacity to more reasonable 20,000 after the games, so maybe a separate ceremony stadium isn’t such a bad idea.

Tokyo would have the same Olympic Stadium they had when they previously hosted the Summer Olympics in 1964. The stadium will be reconstructed for the 2019 Rugby World Cup increasing the seating capacity from about 50,000 to about 80,000. Madrid’s Olympic Stadium would be Estadio La Peineta which is currently being expanded from 20,000 seats to 70,000 to become football club Atlético Madrid’s home stadium in 2015.

As a tennis fan, I am interested in the tennis venues, even though tennis is one of my least favorite sports at the Olympics. I think Spain would be the best possible country to host the Olympic tennis; they are probably the most important tennis nation without a slam, the Olympics would be their chance to host something almost as important as a slam. Also, Madrid’s tennis venue Caja Mágica has clay courts so we might see Olympic tennis on clay; previously there have been clay courts only at the 1993 Olympics in Barcelona.

The tennis venue in Tokyo would be the Ariake Coliseum. It currently has DecoTurf hard courts, and that probably wouldn’t change for the Olympics, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 were played on DecoTurf as it prepares players for the US Open played on the same surface. For that reason, I believe also Istanbul would have the Olympic tennis on DecoTurf hard courts, they don’t have an existing venue with another surface like London last year and Barcelona in 1992 had.

I found the proposed dates for the games in the IOC’s Evaluation Commission report. Istanbul and Madrid have proposed to hold the games from 7 to 23 August, i.e. the same weeks as Beijing 2008. Tokyo has proposed to hold the games two weeks earlier from 24 July to 9 August, i.e. the same weeks as London 2012. That affects to the Olympic sports’ competition calendars. In tennis that would obviously mean that Tokyo would host the Olympics before the Canadian and Cincinnati Masters events. Istanbul and Madrid would host the Olympics between those Masters events and the US Open. I am afraid that the latter scenario could weaken the field at the Olympic tennis. Players would have to travel from the USA to another continent for the Olympics and then back to the USA for the US Open. Some players might be reluctant to do that ahead of a slam, especially if the Olympics were played on clay in Madrid. That would mean a transition from hard courts to clay and back to hard courts.

I think the host nation succeeding is important for the atmosphere of sports events. Of these three bidding nations, Japan has been the most successful in the recent Olympic Games; Japanese athletes won 38 medals at last year’s Summer Olympics, Spanish athletes won 17 medals and Turkish athletes five medals. On the other hand, host nations may be more willing for doping as they have the pressure to succeed at their home Olympics. That’s why I think a bidding nation shouldn’t have any recent doping scandals like Turkey and Spain have had during the past year. Numerous Turkish athletes have been caught from doping during the past year. In Spain, Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes was convicted over doping offences but the court didn’t allow his clients to be named, which caused cover-up speculations. Because of those scandals, I believe Japan would be the most likely to host clean Olympics, at least when it comes to the home team. Moreover, I think the IOC could punish countries with doping scandals by not awarding them the games.

Yet another reason for why I think Tokyo would be the best host city is that I think Japan is a better place for the 2020 Olympics than Turkey or Spain. There were big demonstrations in Turkey this summer, something which I don’t think should happen in an Olympic host country. Spain, on the other hand, is a country in a financial crisis. Another crisis country, Italy, were also bidding for the 2020 games but withdrew their bid because of their financial situation. That’s why I think neither Spain should get the games.

So, Tokyo is my favorite. They have the most compact bid and I think Japan is the best country of the bidders to host the Olympics. I would prefer Madrid’s bid as they have most venues already existing. Unfortunately I don’t think Spain would be the best country to host the Olympics in 2020 because of their financial crisis. What I think is Tokyo’s problem is that there would be two consecutive Olympic Games in Eastern Asia; South Korea’s Pyeongchang will host the 2018 Winter Olympics. But I don’t think that should be a problem, Greece’s Athens hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics and Italy’s Torino the 2006 Winter Olympics so there were two consecutive Olympic Games in Mediterranean countries.