Today’s article is a guest post from Markku Rimpiläinen, who is a skier with a serious writing problem. By profession he is journalist, who has written two books about the history of finnish alpine skiing. You can find him in the finnish ski resort Tahko, where he still occasionally works as a ski instructor.

The Birth of Finnish Freestyle Skiing

In 1977 at Eastertime, holiday skiers at the Suomu ski resort in Finnish Lapland saw something new and strange. A huge jump had appeared near the ski lift. At the top of the jump there stood a young ski instructor with sunglasses and a fancy hat. A crowd of curious skiers had gathered around him. The ski instructor explained what kind of jumps were soon to be seen.

The first freestyle skiing competition in Finland was about to begin.

The young man at the top of the jump was Roger Talermo, the main organizer of the event.

The atmosphere at this first competition was enthusiastic. There were about 40 competitors. Many of them were ski instructors at Suomu, some were also ex-alpine racers. Many tried the new, hot freestyle jumps, such as back scratchers, for the first time. The audience was bigger than at any of the Finnish alpine races that winter.

Although the jump was very small by today’s standards, many competitors fell down. That did not matter: everyone got huge applause. The winner was Kai Tapani.

But what had happened before this competition? How did Roger Talermo find out that this new school of skiing existed?

Originally Roger Talermo became interested in freestyle skiing in the late 1960s. He saw photos of mogul skiing and jumps in American skiing magazines and became very, very curious.

The roots of freestyle developed in the USA when skiers started to compete in acrobatic skiing. Gradually freestyle developed from hot dogging to stunt ballet, aerial skiing and mogul skiing. The term “freestyle” covered all these three new ways of skiing.

In the early 1970s, the first freestyle films arrived in Europe. Roger Talermo spent hours watching them.

In the winter of 1976, he was skiing in the Alps when he heard stories about a professional Marlboro Ski Show. Talermo contacted the group and managed to get them also to Finland in spring 1976 with a little help from the Philip Morris company.

The Marlboro Ski Show amazed everyone in Suomu late in the spring. Talermo was one skier in the show, but the hottest skier was Phil Sifferman.

A Swedish member of the group, Håkan Kristiansson, told Talermo that later in the spring the Scandinavian Open would be held in Duved. Talermo had neither money nor proper competition clothing, but he decided to try get some sponsors.

And so he did.

He got the skis from Ski Systems, some clothing from A&K and a little money from several sources. In Duved, he participated in every competition and was finally seventh in the moguls.

That did it. Talermo decided to start serious training in freestyle. He learned the tricks of jumping in Tignes and bacame a member of the prestigious Salomon Professional Team. Before the first competition in Finland he was seventh in the Austrian Open.

After that first competition at Suomu, Talermo was convinced that it was necessary to establish the Finnish Freestyle Union. There was huge interest among skiers. Talermo realized that proper training and competitions would give Finnish freestyle a quick start. Talermo planned that after establishing a national union, many freestyle clubs would be organized.

The Finnish Freestyle Union was established on November 23rd, 1977. Talermo became the first chairman.

The main task was to organize competitions and in that way to spread word about the new way of skiing. It was also important to qualify the racers. The union wanted to allow only racers who could do their jumps without immediate danger of injury into jumping competitions.

The first Finnish championships were held in Jyväskylä on March 11-12, 1978. A proper mogul piste was built on the steep racing slope of Laajavuori. It was quite a shock to many competitors. The moguls were huge, almost two meters in height.

Before the competition the weather was warm and the slope very soft. The night before the big race the temperature started to fall and the slope became icy. The judges very quickly decided that it was best to value skiing technique more than speed.

When the competition started, there were approximately 2000 spectators in the slope. That was a huge crowd! Among the competitors were also Ari Heinilä and Hannu Mikkola, the founders of the finnish skiing magazine Skimbaaja.

Soon the audience realized that every racer had to perform two jumps during the run. After that they started to shout “Jump! Jump!” to every skier.

The hottest new skier was Risto Kanninen, a local boy. He got huge shouts when he did his first, very difficult jump. A helicopter! The audience twisted and shouted when Kanninen got the highest points. Ultimately he won more experienced skiers Roger Talermo and Uffe Tollet. Had it been otherwise, a riot probably would have erupted in Laajavuori.

The next competition was in ballet. The audience was again amazed. The performance of the skiers was excellent. Besides, they wore nice outfits, such as tuxedos! Roger Talermo won, Uffe Tollet was second and Tom Saariaho came in third.

The highlight of the weekend was Sunday’s jumping contest. A huge jump?over two meters in height—was  built. It would catapult the skiers high in the air. Many of the competitors had never seen a jump so high. It really frightened the audience.

The first round was more or less warming up. In the second round the audience saw what they really wanted: the somersaults. Michael Nyman made the first somersault, but unfortunately he fell.

The last man in the competition was Roger Talermo. He made a perfect somersault backwards. It was the best jump of the day. Talermo was awarded with a gold medal. Uffe Tollet with his high flying helicopters was second, and Kai Tapani was third. Thus ski instructors from Suomu took all medals available.

After the Finnish championships, a real freestyle fever spread all over Finland. Especially young skiers liked the relaxed and modern atmosphere which was very different from the mood of more serious alpine racing.

The first three freestyle clubs established were Jyväskylä Freestyle Club, Avalanche in Suomu and Oulu Ski Team 77. The first capitals of Finnish freestyle were Laajavuori, in Jyväskylä, and Suomu.

In winter 1980-81 there were already eight freestyle clubs in Finland. Competions were held in Messilä, Iso-Syöte, Suomu and Pyhä.

The Finnish freestyle scene had been born.

After his skiing career Roger Talermo became involved in the sport equipment business and started to work for Salomon. Now he is the CEO of Amer Sports, the owner of Atomic and Salomon.

Uffe Tollet became the head coach of the Finnish mogul skiers. A member of his group, Martti Kellokumpu won the world championship in mogul skiing in 1984.