Former cross-country skiing coach accuses Finnish Ski Association of orchestrating doping

State Prosecutor orders case to be re-examined

Kari-Pekka Kyrö

Marjo Matikainen-Kallström

Pekka Vähäsöyrinki

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The murky recent past of Finnish cross-country skiing is doggedly refusing to go away. Kari-Pekka Kyrö, the former head coach of the Finnish cross-country skiing team, claims that in terms of Olympic sports, the FSA has been the largest distributor of doping substances in Finland. He charges that doping was widespread in Finnish skiing in the 1990s.
      Moreover, Kyrö also asserts that Olympic champion Marjo Matikainen, now a National Coalition Party MP, would have stooped to using banned substances in order to achieve success and reputation.
     
Kyrö claims further that Pekka Vähäsöyrinki, the then head of cross-country skiing at the FSA, also manoeuvred him into the doping scene, by asking him to keep some performance enhancing drugs, namely growth hormone and Russian erythropoietin, at his home in 1998.
      State Prosecutor Pekka Koponen reports that the interviews with Kyrö in May were the basis for re-investigating the association's role in doping in the 1990s.
      The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is to launch further investigations into the old doping libel case dating back ten years, in which the editor-in-chief of the Finnish News Agency (STT) and an STT journalist were convicted of libel.
     
There are suspicions that STT would have been falsely found guilty of libel over its allegations of widespread sports doping among Finnish skiers.
      In an interview with Helsingin Sanomat, Kari-Pekka Kyrö said that he is confident that the truth will come out at the latest when further investigations into the old sports doping uproar from 1998 have been launched.
      ”I have never used any banned substances”, repeated MP Marjo Matikainen-Kallström to STT on Tuesday.
      ”However, while various rumours are going around, it is good to find out the real truth [through the NBI investigations]”, she added, saying also that it is fine that at least one source of those rumours has now come forward.
     
Kyrö names Jari Piirainen as ”the commander of the doping company”, as Piirainen was the head of cross-country skiing at the FSA from 1989 to 1997.
      However, Piirainen, the present managing director of the Finnish Ski Association (FSA), vehemently denies all such allegations. In fact, the association has consistently denied that Finnish skiers used performance-enhancing drugs in the 1990s.
      Kari-Pekka Kyrö was the head coach of the Finnish women’s cross-country team from 1995 to 1998. Today he says that it was not possible to achieve much without using doping.
      Kyrö also says that when he was the head of cross-country skiing at the FSA from 1998 to 2001, he became convinced that the background of the FSA was not clean, while the key figures in the FSA were evading the truth - as they still are.
      Kyrö's career at the FSA came to an abrupt end in 2001 following the disclosure that six top Finnish skiers - men and women - had tested positive for a banned plasma expander at the Nordic World Championships in Lahti.
     
The latest uproar emerged in April when the the commercial Finnish television channel Nelonen’s news programme reported that Finnish competitive cross-country skiing in the 1990s was largely based on doping.
      Nelonen also claimed that it has detailed information regarding the cover-up of doping violations by the Finnish Ski Association in the 1990s.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  MP Matikainen-Kallström calls for doping accusers to come forward (10.4.2008)
  Kaisa Varis given lifetime ban by International Biathlon Union (12.2.2008)
  B-sample of Kaisa Varis proves use of doping (14.3.2003)
  Kyrö interview casts doubt on 1998 doping libel case (22.5.2008)
  Former ski coach Kyrö reported to be source in TV news story on doping (21.5.2008)
  TV channel Nelonen: Finnish Ski Association covered up widespread doping in 1990s (23.4.2008)
  Finns numbed by shocking revelations of Finnish Ski Association (1.3.2001)
  Appeals Court reduces sentences in STT doping libel case (31.10.2000)

Helsingin Sanomat