Sphere of interest|Kalmer Tramm, head coach of the Vantaa Ski Association, is sure that skiing will be successful in cities. He hopes for more full-time club coaches in the sport.
Will it end? skiing from Finland, when people move from the countryside to the cities and the strong localities of the traditional sport become quieter?
Has the last nail in the coffin of the successful Finnish sport been hammered into the coffin?
It is not, if you ask a person from Vantaa From Kalmer Tram.
Tramm believes that skiing has a good future in Finland. But it is in the growth centers.
“Someone could say that the game is lost, but I would say that this is not the case. The latest studies show that urban children move more than rural children,” Tramm begins.
In the top ten of the skiing association’s club ranking, there are already mainly urban clubs. Finland’s most vibrant ski clubs come from Espoo, Vantaa, Jyväskylä, Lahti, Rovaniemi, Kuopio and Helsinki.
The guidelines of Finnish skiing are drawn more and more strongly in the cities as well.
“Top clubs actually have an obligation, responsibility and opportunity to build top athletes. And act as a model for all other clubs,” says Tramm.
Tram in a certain way, he himself is an example of the transformation of skiing into an urban sport.
He works in the Vantaa Ski Club (VHS) with the title of head coach, and is a rarity in Finland as a full-time ski coach.
There are twenty professional coaches in the networks of sports high schools, academies and the association, but as a full-time club coach, Tramm is an exception.
Tramm hopes that many other ski clubs could hire their own coach. But that requires money and enough athletes to coach. These criteria are most easily met in cities.
Estonian Tramm has been working at the Vantaa Ski Association since 2017. Before that, he did conscript service in the Soviet Army, graduated from the Faculty of Sports Science at the University of Tartu and coached the Estonian women’s cross country team for six years, among other things.
Kalmer Tramm wants more professional coaches for skiing.
How urban children and their parents get interested in skiing?
You should learn from ball sports, says Tramm.
The first development target is improving the clubs’ vitality.
In past decades, the clubs played a secondary role in the visions of the Ski Association, but now their importance has finally been understood.
Clubs are in a key position if you want new enthusiasts to join skiing and success in prestigious competitions. So are proper training conditions.
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“The same applies to coaching as it does to other services. We need quality and regularity.”
Ice hockey and football have been extremely successful in developing the conditions. In Finland, there is an ice rink in almost every municipality, and plenty of artificial grass and halls for futsal players.
The conditions for skiing have also improved considerably in recent years. Snow can be stored effectively over the summer and snow cannons can be found in every municipality.
You can go skiing in the capital region already in mid-November, and the season lasts almost half a year.
“When the conditions improve, I believe that it will be easier to attract new families, girls and boys to skiing, as long as the coaching is also in order,” says Tramm.
In the Hakunila sports park, at the end of November, there was a track about a kilometer long.
According to Trammi, the lack of professional coaches is also one of the reasons why the appeal of skiing is not good for team sports.
Young people and parents who pay for the hobby like good team training. Too few Ski Clubs are still able to offer such.
“The same applies to coaching as it does to other services. Quality and regularity are needed. Whatever you buy, you think carefully about what you get for your money. Club activities are no exception to this,” says Tramm.
And once the child and his family have been brought into the club, they must be well taken care of. Through that, in addition to enthusiasts, the club accumulates different skills and expertise.
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“I would like another full-time coach.”
In Vantaa many things are fine. Vantaa is actually a model example of why skiing is successful in big cities.
The Vantaa Ski Club has a sufficient number of juniors so that it is natural to organize diverse and regular activities.
There are joint exercises four times a week, and at the best time there can be up to 70 young people practicing. There are also more than half a dozen coaches.
Skiers studying at Sotung sports high school also have three morning training sessions. They have the opportunity for seven training sessions a week, where the coach is involved.
Tramm also thanks the closer cooperation between the clubs and the strengthening of district coaching. They too bring new opportunities for athletes.
Jasmi Joensuu is the star skier of Vantaa Ski Club.
VHS actively recruits old skiers to join the activity. Trammi has an idea to make this even more effective.
“It’s worth going through old competition results and looking for former club athletes. They may be interested in participating in club activities, they may also have a wide variety of skills gained from civilian work,” envisions Tramm.
Vantaa The skiing club is also helped by the fact that the city has invested in improving the conditions.
Halunila has championship-level tracks, which the city improves every year. The snowmaking system is also in order.
Hakunila has a dozen snow cannons. For this season, Vantaa acquired an Italian “snow factory” worth 800,000 euros for the sports park, which can be used to make snow even in summer weather.
In addition, a year ago, a large artificial ice rink was completed in the Hakunila sports park, with ice slush and plowed snow that can be dumped directly onto the rink.
Tram still has some hopes. In Espoo’s Oittaa, snow is stored under blankets over the summer for next winter’s needs, and stored snow could also be used in Hakunila.
All the more, Tramm wanted a roller ski track in the sports park for summer training.
And what else?
“I would like another full-time coach to join me. The dream is that we would have 20 coaching groups with 20 athletes in each.”