The chief physician of the Olympic team, Maarit Valtonen, has been pressing for a long day in the last months. Pushing through the Chinese corona protocol has been a medical, bureaucratic and logistical effort.
Finland and the Norwegian cross-country teams recently stayed at the same hotel in Seiser, Italy, where finishing drills were prepared for the Olympics.
For Norway, the price of the camp was four positive crown cases, ie a disaster, for Finland zero. There are many factors behind this victory, but the most important is the Chief Medical Officer of the Olympic Committee. Maarit Valtonen, who joined the sport in 2014.
A few years ago, Valtonen told Ilta-Sanomat how, for example Iivo Niskasen handwashing sessions were prolonged by twenty seconds after the attitude education provided by the physician. The results have spoken for themselves and can only be made completely healthy.
“Of course I heard messages about what happened at Seiser Alm. I am proud that the team was so accurate that it came out uninfected. It required a really strong attitude from the athletes, ”Valtonen said on Friday.
Iivo Niskanen’s hand washing sessions were extended thanks to the attitude education given by Chief Physician Maarit Valtonen. In 2017, a man skied 15 kilometers of World Cup gold in Lahti as healthy as a buck.
In the year 2011 a woman with a doctorate in medicine is not even trying to cover up how strong she has been in recent months. Getting the team to China through the local corona protocol into the accommodation bubbles in the race villages has been a fierce medical, bureaucratic and logistical effort.
There has been no room for error. The number of contacts to the chief physician has been quite huge.
Head of the Olympic Committee’s Center of Excellence for Sports Mika Lehtimäki describes Valto as a “completely invaluable person”.
“It’s been a bit of a job. There have been no days off, ”admitted Valtonen, who lives in Jyväskylä with her four children and her husband.
“And I don’t want any heroic cloak. This job has been done with a really large number of professionals. Nothing would have come alone. ”
Everybody in Finland seems to be able to get under clothing without corona infection, at least for the time being. This, in turn, is largely the result of the fact that Valtonen, who started in the cross-country team in 2014, has been training athletes long before anything was known about the coronavirus.
Last years Finnish top skiers have generally been healthy at the right time. This was certainly not the starting point. At the turn of the year 2014-2015, there was a downturn when the flu wiped out the team at the Tour de Sk and only two skiers climbed on Alpe Cermis.
“That’s when we started with the basics: follow-up, vaccinations, attitude education. The research work had revealed that the national team really had a bad infection situation. ”
Valtonen, who graduated as a specialist in sports medicine in 2014, specializes in respiratory function and exercise physiology, which gives him excellent skills in cross-country skiing.
His collaborative and research work with infectious physicians and virologists has aroused a great deal of international interest as well.
When 2014 returned as head coach of skiing Reijo Jylhä asked Valto to join a team of doctors for the sport, a doctor who had worked in America for a couple of years wondering what to answer.
Top sports when its doping history is also known. Many doctors have lost at least their reputation for it, even their professional licenses.
“It simply came to our notice then. When I returned from America, I knew I wanted to work with enthusiastic and motivated people. Top athletes if who are. And when you still play hard, it adds to the fascination of the work. ”
According to Mika Lehtimäki, Valtonen has come to top sports with just the right influences: the desire to help:
“It’s already revealed that he’s stayed in the industry. The Finnish sports world is not able to compete for imported people on wages. ”
Mona-Liisa Nousiainen’s shocking cancer diagnosis in 2018 and her death in 2019 were stopping things for Maarit Valtonen, both as a person and as a medical professional.
In 2018 Valtonen found himself in a difficult position as both a man and a doctor when he helped a skier who had finished his career Mona-Liisa Nousiaista to find a cure for their incurable stomach cancer. It had come as a complete shock to the athlete who had just finished.
Nousiainen died in the summer of 2019. The matter is still so difficult for Valtonen that the lines are quiet for a while.
“At the forefront are still feelings of disappointment, even anger, about not getting a diagnosis before. Then maybe something else could have been done about the illness. When it is the top athletes who are typically subject to intensive health monitoring. ”
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