Ski-jumping coach does a lot of flying

HS follows a travelling day in the life of Mika Kojonkoski before the weekend's World Cup competitions

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By Ari Pusa in Oslo
     
      A tall, slim man strolls down the corridors of Oslo International Airport dragging a large suitcase and a carry-on bag. Ski-jumping coach Mika Kojonkoski is on the move again - just as he is on nearly 200 other days a year.
     
Before the man from Kuopio can board the high-speed airport shuttle into the centre of the Norwegian capital, he stops to buy a sandwich and a drink from a kiosk on the concourse. The onboard service on the flight from Helsinki to Oslo was once again on the frugal side.
      After picking up his late-morning snack, the head coach of the Norwegian ski-jumping team steps onto the escalator leading down to the platforms. For an instant or two, the view from the top of the steep stairway is not unlike that facing his charges as they sit on the bar of the jumping tower.
     
The train journey into town is mercifully short, just 20 minutes, and then Kojonkoski is in the capital of the world's most enthusiastic winter sports nation.
      A few passers-by seem to recognise the Finn at the railway terminus. His hand-waving [to send the jumpers on their way] and victory celebrations have become familiar from TV coverage of World Cup events in recent years.
      The ski-jump team's sporting director Clas Brede Bråthen is waiting for Kojonkoski at the station. The coach packs his cases into the back of Bråthan's SUV and they head off for a quick salad lunch.
     
After lunch, Kojonkoski takes part on the podium at a seminar in the Oslo Concert Hall. The gathering is attended by a couple of hundred corporate executives and professional coaches. The Hat-Trick Project Leadership seminars are held three times a year, and they are subscription affairs.
      The previous seminar featured as its main guest speaker Sven-Göran Eriksson, manager of the England football team.
      First up on stage before Kojonkoski is Rune Hauge, a football agent and Norwegian multimillionaire. Hauge collected a cheque for around NOK 40 million (roughly EUR 4 million) recently for brokering a new TV deal for the Norwegian Football Association.
      While he is being interviewed, Hauge tells the story of a Nigerian player who was traded by an unscrupulous agent to two different clubs at the same time. The case is currently keeping a small army of lawyers in funds.
      Mika Kojonkoski is one of the highest-paid of Finnish coaches, but his income pales alongside that of Hauge. In 2003, the Finn earned around 280,000 euros from his work.
      He pays one third of his income tax in Norway and the remainder in Finland. Gigs like this appearance in Oslo are run through Kojonkoski's own company, with the intention some day of financing work on his currently-stalled doctoral dissertation.
     
Kojonkoski has not come here with a prepared speech, but answers questions put to him by Erik Thorstvedt, the former Norway and Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper. Thorstvedt played for the Norwegian side at the 1994 World Cup Finals.
      The opening questions are a kind of warm-up and deal with Kojonkoski's own active career. He tells the audience that after he shot up ten centimetres in height at the age of 15, any dreams he might have had of a ski-jumping future went out of the window.
      While he was a student, Kojonkoski became interested in coaching, and this hobby ultimately turned into a profession. "Then again, there is no way that I intend to be a ski-jumping coach to the end of my days", says Kojonkoski.
     
He is certainly committed until 2008, having signed a new deal to lead the Norwegian coaching team. "Maybe I'm getting old, because by then I'll have been here as a coach for six years", laughs Kojonkoski.
      As it happens, the use of the words "here as a coach" is not altogether accurate. He has no other ties in Norway except for his coaching work itself, not even a pied à terre apartment. In all he calculates that he spends not much more than three weeks a year in Norway.
      His family, consisting of a wife and three children, lives in Kuopio, to which Kojonkoski will be returning after the weekend's World Cup competitions. His bags will have to be repacked for the next trip by Thursday at the latest.
      When Kojonkoski is not around, the team are coached by two Norwegian assistants. Kojonkoski sees to the big lines, is responsible for organisation, drafts the training regimens, and pops in for training sessions in Lillehammer or Trondheim, if there are not ongoing World Cup events elsewhere in Europe.
      Each of the jumpers on the team presents a self-assessment report once a week, and Kojonkoski pulls all the threads together in development meetings.
     
Kojonkoski spent one of his most successful winter seasons with his family last year, when they rented a place in Benalmadena, near Malaga on the Costa del Sol.
      It might sound strange, but then again one can get from Southern Spain to the major European ski-jump venues a good deal faster than from Kuopio.
      In Norway, the fact that their head coach was living down in Spain caused raised eyebrows only very briefly at the first jumping event of the season, when the local boys underperformed.
      The family moved back to Kuopio when Kojonkoski's wife reached the end of her sabbatical from her job as a sales manager.
     
Thorstvedt asks Kojonkoski about his coaching philosophy. The Finn snaps to attention and launches into a lengthy explanation in English of how he feels that team spirit is the most important matter in ski-jumping.
      "Ski-jumping is only an individual sport for about fifteen seconds. All the rest is teamwork. I want a team where every individual is important, and not some single superstar", says Kojonkoski, and the Norwegian coaching fraternity in the audience nods appreciatively.
     
Kojonkoski is in the spotlight for an hour, but the discussion continues in the foyer of the concert hall, where the business people and coaches have moved on to the schmoozing phase, wine-glasses in hands.
      Kojonkoski, however, is unable to tip a glass with the others. He is already in a hurry to get to Lillehammer, where the next two World Cup competitions will be held.*
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 5.12.2005
     
*Note: It was not a bad weekend for Kojonkoski. Lars Bystøl finished second and third on the HS131 hill. The Norwegians have got off to a slower start this year than in 2004/05.

More on this subject:
 Kojonkoski was offered top job on Norwegian Olympic Committee
 WHO? Mika Kojonkoski

ARI PUSA / Helsingin Sanomat
ari.pusa@sanoma.fi