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Pasi Koskela (born 28 August 1980) is a Finnish former speed skater. He was a member of the speed skating national team of Finland for many years, including the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. [1] After his racing career, Pasi Koskela became head coach of Finland's national team in 2011.[ citation needed ]
Pasi is the brother of Pekka Koskela, who is one of the world's fastest speed skating sprinters.[ citation needed ] Pasi is also cousin to wrestler Harri Koskela.
Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long-track speed skating, short-track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. In the Olympic Games, long-track speed skating is usually referred to as just "speed skating", while short-track speed skating is known as "short track". The International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body of competitive ice sports, refers to long track as "speed skating" and short track as "short track skating".
The Winter Olympic Games is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held in Chamonix, France. The modern Olympic Games were inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Olympia, Greece, from 776 BCE to 394 CE. The Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) 1,500 years later in 1894, leading to the first modern Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece in 1896. The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement, with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority. The original five Winter Olympic Sports were bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing, and skating. The Games were held every four years from 1924 to 1936, interrupted in 1940 and 1944 by World War II, and resumed in 1948. Until 1992, the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games were held in the same year. A decision to change this was made in 1986, when during the 91st International Olympic Committee session, IOC members decided to alternate the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games on separate four-year cycles in even-numbered years. Also, at that same congress it was decided that 1992 Winter Olympics would be the last to be held in the same year as the Summer Games and that to change the rotation, the games that would be held in 1996 would be brought forward by two years, being scheduled to 1994. After those games, the next were to be held in 1998 when the four-year Olympic Cycle resumed.
The 1952 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VI Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Oslo 1952, were a winter multi-sport event held from 14 to 25 February 1952 in Oslo, the capital of Norway.
Chad Hedrick is an American inline speed skater and ice speed skater. He was born in Spring, Texas.
Synchronized skating, often called synchro, is an ice skating sport where between 8 and 20 skaters perform together as a team. They move as a flowing unit at high speed over the ice, while performing elements and footwork.
Mänttä is a former town and municipality of Finland. It was merged with the municipality of Vilppula to form Mänttä-Vilppula on 1 January 2009.
Lidiya Pavlovna Skoblikova is a retired Russian speed skater and coach. She represented the USSR Olympic team during the Olympic Winter Games in 1960, 1964 and 1968, and won a total of six gold medals, a record she shares with Dutch speed skater Ireen Wüst. She also won 25 gold medals at the world championships and 15 gold medals at the USSR National Championships in several distances. She was also the first athlete to earn six gold medals in the Winter Olympics and the first to earn four gold medals at a single Olympic Winter Games. She was the most successful athlete at the 1960 and 1964 Winter Olympics, sharing the honour for 1960 Games with her compatriot Yevgeny Grishin.
Anna ("Anni") Christine Friesinger-Postma is a German former speed skater. Her father Georg Friesinger, of Germany, and mother Janina ("Jana") Korowicka, of Poland, were both skaters; Jana was on the Polish team at the 1976 Winter Olympics. Her brother Jan is also a speed skater. Her sister Agnes is a former speed skater. In July 2010, Friesinger retired from her active sports career when she had to be treated for severe cartilage damage in her right knee joint.
The men's 500 metres speed skating competition for the 2006 Winter Olympics was held in Turin, Italy. The competition consisted of two separate 500 metre races, with the competitors ranked by their cumulative time from the two races.
Lee Kyou-hyuk is a South Korean retired long track speed skater who specializes in the 500 and 1,000 meters. He was the 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 World Sprint Speed Skating Champion and the 2011 World Champion for 500 m. He is one of four men to have won the World Sprint Speed Skating Championships four times.
Pekka Koskela is a retired Finnish speed skater, specialised on the sprint distances 500 m and 1000 m. He is the former world record holder on the 1000 m with the time 1:07.00. In December 2001 he set a junior world record on the 500 m with the time 35.89. Since that time he has established himself as one of the best speed skating sprinters in the world. He won his first medal, a bronze, on the 1000 m in the 2005 World Single Distance Championships. Koskela was number 10 in the 500 m of the 2006 Winter Olympics.
Janne Hänninen is a Finnish former speedskater who specialised on the shorter distances 500 m, 1000 m, and 1500 m. His personal bests on these distances are 35.00, 1:08.45, and 1:46.04. He participated in three Olympics and a string of World Single Distance Championships and World Sprint Speed Skating Championships. Janne Hänninen is the son of former Finnish speedskater Seppo Hänninen, who also participated in three Olympics.
Finland first participated at the Olympic Games in 1908 and has sent athletes to compete in every Summer Olympic Games and every Winter Olympic Games since then. Finland was also the host nation for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. Finnish athletes have won a total of 305 medals at the Summer Games, mostly in athletics and wrestling. Finland has also won 175 medals at the Winter Games, mostly in nordic skiing events.
Klubi 04 is a Finnish football club based in Helsinki. It is the reserve team of HJK Helsinki for whom a number of the players are also registered.
The 2007–08 Speed Skating World Cup was a multi-race tournament over a season of speed skating. The season began on 9 November 2007 and lasted until 22 February 2008. The World Cup was organised by the ISU, who also run world cups and championships in short track speed skating and figure skating.
Trevor Marsicano is an American speed skater and silver medalist in the Winter Olympics.
Karolína Erbanová is a Czech ice hockey player and retired long-track speed skater. She won a bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in the 500 m event in speed skating.
Väinö Koskela was a Finnish long-distance runner. Originally a cross-country skier, he was inspired to take up track and field athletics by Finnish victories in the long-distance running events at the 1936 Summer Olympics. He began competing in 1945, following service in World War II, and made his first international appearance at the 1948 Summer Olympics, where he placed seventh in the men's 5000 metres event. The same year he was a national champion in both the 5000 metres and cross-country running and retained the former title through 1949. In 1950 he took home a bronze medal in the 10,000 metres at that year's European Athletics Championships and continued to participate through the 1952 Summer Olympics, after which he retired from active competition and resumed a life of farming.
Jessica Hewitt is a Canadian short track speed skater. In February 2013, she qualified to participate in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, representing Canada in the short track speed skating.
Finland competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with 100 competitors in 11 sports. They won six medals in total, one gold, one silver and four bronze, ranking 18th in the medal table.
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