Finns fall short in medals department, but there were Olympic highlights after all

Ice hockey men fight back to take bronze medals after semi-final debacle againt Team USA

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The Finnish Olympic Committee, perhaps spurred by the encouraging performance at the Nordic Skiing World Championships in Liberec a year ago, set an ambitious target of twelve medals - at least one of them gold - from the Vancouver Olympics, which ended on Sunday night.
      Needless to say, the target was missed by a country mile, with Finnish athletes managing to collect just five medals - one silver and four bronze.
     
On the whole, disappointments outweighed the causes for satisfaction, but there were a few glimmers of hope: after being royally thrashed by the United States in their semi-final match, where they conceded 6 goals without reply in a nightmarish first period and lost 6-1, the ice hockey men eventually emulated the women and took the bronze medals.
      Even this was touch-and-go, however, with many early risers deciding to go back to bed in disgust as Finland went 3-1 down to Slovakia after two periods.
      Those who switched off missed some third-period fireworks as the Finns fought back with three goals in the space of three minutes, two of them by Olli Jokinen, and they eventually came home 5-3 winners.
     
This provided a positive send-off for the substantial number of Finnish players who are coming to the end of their active careers, such as Teemu Selänne, Saku Koivu, and Jokinen himself.
      Team Finland can also take some pride in the fact that since the NHL players joined the Olympic family in Nagano in 1998, Finland is the only country to have won three ice hockey medals.
      Admittedly, none of them have been golden, but all the other big ice hockey countries have to make do with less: Canada, the United States, the Czech Republic (beaten 2-0 by Finland this time in the quarter-finals), and Russia can only boast two, while Sweden has just the one, a gold medal from the Torino final at the expense of Finland.
      Now the national team will probably face a period of rebuilding rather like that of the Finnish footballers - new players will have to be brought through to replace the retirees.
     
In the figure skating, Laura Lepistö delivered in the free programme in a truly admirable fashion and hauled her self up from 10th place to finish sixth, making her the best European in the field and setting a personal best.
      No Finnish female figure skater has ever finished so high in the Olympic standings.
      She was ably supported by Kiira Korpi, who also moved up from 17th to finish 11th and set a personal best.
     
Aino-Kaisa Saarinen added an individual bronze medal to the one she collected as part of Finland's women's cross-country skiing relay team, as she produced a mature and tactically smart performance in Saturday's 30km classic event.
      Saarinen changed her skis with five kilometres still to go, and although her pitstop cost precious seconds, she used the new skis to good advantage and overhauled the opposition to come home a minute behind Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk and Marit Björgen of Norway.
      These two had a ding-dong battle for gold, and were separated at the line by just 0.3 seconds after 90 minutes of skiing.
      Riikka Sarasoja finished in 13th place, nearly three minutes behind Kowalcyzk.
     
Virpi Kuitunen came home 14th after taking a tumble on the tracks, and announced she was retiring from the sport after the Finnish Championships at the end of March.
      Overall, Kuitinen had a rather disappointing games, in spite of collecting a second bronze medal as a member of the 4 x 5 km women's relay team.
      Kuitunen earlier took bronze with Aino-Kaisa Saarinen in Torino in the team sprint.
      She also has six World Championships gold medals to her name and is a two-time winner of both the FIS Cross-Country Skiing World Cup and the Tour de Ski.
      In 2002 she was ineligible for the Salt Lake City games as she was serving a two-year suspension following her involvement in the Lahti doping scandal.
     
In the men's marathon ski competition over 50 kilometres on Sunday, the best Finnish showing came from Sami Jauhojärvi, who finished 20th, a minute behind winner Petter Northug of Norway.
      The Finnish men skiers had a subdued time of it in Vancouver, with the best performances being 5th place in the 4x 10 km relay and in the team sprint event.
     
The ski-jumpers, too, drew a complete blank, with Janne Ahonen failing to add an individual Olympic medal to his trophy collection. He finished an agonising 4th (again) on the normal hill, and the team took the same place just outside the medals.
      There was no glorious comeback, either, for Nordic Combined star Hannu Manninen. He came 4th in the individual large hill/10 km event, but was a long way from securing a bronze medal there.
      Despite winning the ski-jumping component and starting at the head of the field in the skiing, the Nordic Combined relay team could do no better than 5th place.
      Tanja Poutiainen had been touted as a possible medallist after her silver in the giant slalom in Torino, but she finished a disappointing 13th in that event and was then 6th in the slalom.
     
The freestyle skiers more or less vanished without trace, and among the snowboarding team only Peetu Piiroinen kept the Finnish flag waving, as he took a very creditable silver medal in the halfpipe behind one of the games' outstanding stars, Shaun White of the United States.
      Markku Koski (6th) and Markus Malin (11th) also made the final of the halfpipe.
      The Finns were not represented in Vancouver in the curling (won by Canada in the men and Sweden in the women), so there could be no repeat of the armchair TV excitement generated four years ago when this quirky sport suddenly became a minor craze, as the Finnish team made the final and took the silver medals.
     
In a thrilling hockey final on Sunday night before the curtain came down on the 2010 games and the Olympic flag was passed to Sochi, Canada squeaked home 3-2 against the previously unbeaten United States, thanks to an overtime winner from Sidney Crosby.
      The Americans had tied matters at 2-2 with just 24 seconds remaining of normal time, sending shivers through a fanatical Canadian crowd, for whom victory on the ice was probably just as important as all the other 13 gold medals they collected.
      It was a rags to riches performance by the hosts, who came to the games as the only host country NOT to have won a gold medal on home turf.
     
Fourteen golds is a new Olympic record for a single winter games, eclipsing the 13 gained by the former Soviet Union in Innsbruck in 1976.
      In all the Canadians won 26 medals (14+7+5), but the largest number of medallists came from the United States (9+15+13=36), and from Germany (10+13+7=30).
     
Norway also collected a large haul of nine golds, eight silver medals, and six bronze medals, and were comfortably the best of the Nordic bunch, while Sweden (5+2+4) also showed Finland a clean pair of heels.
      There was some consolation for the local audience when the Swedish men's ice hockey team failed to progress past the quarter-finals - in spite of the fact that they earlier brushed Finland aside 3-0 in the preliminary round group stages.
      It is perhaps testimony to the love-hate relationship with Sweden that the Helsingin Sanomat web portal actually recorded substantially more unique hits for its report of the Swedish defeat by Slovakia than for Finland's win over the Czech Republic...
      Equally, among all the recriminations about poor Finnish showings in British Columbia, there was probably some grim satisfaction to be had from the fact that the women's ice hockey bronze medal came at the expense of Sweden in a 3-2 overtime victory.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Snowboarder Piiroinen wins Finland first medal in Vancouver (18.2.2010)
  Olympics: No medals yet for Finland (16.2.2010)
  Fourth again! Janne Ahonen continues his unlucky streak (15.2.2010)
  Finnish women’s ice hockey team celebrates Olympic bronze (26.2.2010)
  Women’s relay bronze marks Finland’s first cross-country skiing medal in Vancouver (26.2.2010)
  Finland’s poor showing in Winter Olympics calls for fundamental changes in sports and coaching structures (24.2.2010)

See also:
  Finnish Olympic Committee sets stiff medals target for Vancouver (28.5.2009)

Links:
  Finland at the 2010 Winter Olympics (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat