Rulebook interpretation speeds up Hannu Manninen’s comeback to Nordic Combined by three months

Hannu Manninen

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The former Nordic Combined world cup winner Hannu Manninen, who announced his retirement from the sport in May 2008 and is now planning a comeback, has become a borderline case of a sort, with his compulsory "quarantine period" having been shortened from the prescribed six months to three months.
      The Finnish Ski Association (FSA) received a surprise hint related to the case, after Manninen had filed a competition licence application with the International Ski Federation (FIS) in August.
      “The message was that the handling of Manninen’s licence application could be accelerated, if the application was filed by the FSA”, says FSA Chief of Operations Juha Viertola, without specifying from where the advice came.
     
FSA seized the opportunity and the confirmation was received on Tuesday. Hence Manninen’s six-month waiting period has now been shortened to three months, and his competition licence comes into force on November 12th.
      The shortening of the quarantine period has been agreed on by the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA), FIS, FSA, and the Finnish Anti-Doping Agency FINADA.
      The only condition is that before his first competition Manninen will undergo a minimum of three unannounced doping tests.
     
According to Viertola, what made the shortening of Manninen’s quarantine period possible was the fact that the six-month rule did not exist when Manninen announced his retirement from the sport in the spring of 2008.
      “In a way, this is an attempt to find a solution for the transition period between the old and the new rules”, Viertola explains.
      The six-month rule is not directly mentioned in the present WADA anti-doping regulations.
      “According to WADA, the anti-doping organisations can individually decide on the conditions regarding a comeback. The six-month rule comes indirectly from the WADA directions, which certainly are not absolute. But that is where FIS and FINADA have taken them from”, Viertola concludes.
     
Manninen, a four-time winner of the FIS World Cup title in his discipline, has hopes of being selected for the Finnish team to take part in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next February.
      He joins ski-jumper Janne Ahonen as one of the high-profile Finnish winter sports stars to decide that retirement from the game was perhaps a premature move.
      In Manninen's case, the upcoming Olympics may be a spur: although he dominated his sport for several years, he has not fared quite so well at the Olympics.
      In three attempts in Nagano, Salt Lake City, and Torino, he did not manage to secure an individual medal, though he has a full set of gold, silver, and bronze as a member of relay teams.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Nordic Combined ace Hannu Manninen retires at age of 30 (30.5.2008)

Links:
  Hannu Manninen (Wikipedia)
  FIS-Ski
  FINADA

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