When altogether 110 athletes leave for the Olympic Games, lots of things are needed besides the passport. CHS Expo Freight’s Heikki Mattola, a professional of four different Olympic Games, takes care of the Finnish Olympic Team’s logistics and sees to the fact that all their goods arrive at the right place on schedule – just when they are needed. But just how many travellers are we talking about and what exactly is included in the freight?
More than 200 members in the Finnish Olympic Team
The Finnish Olympic Team in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics consists of more than 200 members. This team will be staying at the destination in two separate Olympic villages, which are situated in PyeongChang and Gangneung.
This entire team of over 200 members consists of 110 elected athletes, numerous coaches, as well as members of the healthcare team and the management team. There are eight doctors and 16 physiotherapists and muscle maintenance therapists.
Mr. Teemu Lemmettylä with his team of 20 professionals takes care of the ski service and maintenance. This team is for the first time responsible for both Nordic combined and cross-country as well as biathlon. Alpine skiing and ski jumping have their own discipline-specific maintenance teams – and so do ice-hockey and speed skating, too.
The Finnish Olympic athletes take part in 11 different winter sports disciplines, which include Alpine skiing, biathlon, curling, freestyle, ice-hockey, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, speed skating, figure skating, and Nordic combined.
The Finnish Olympic Team’s freight headed for Korea already last November
The major part of the Finnish Olympic Team’s freight, which this time consisted of two sea containers, headed for Korea by sea as early as at the end of last November.
– We were able to ship the sea containers last November. One of them consists of goods catering for the needs of the maintenance for ski jumping, Nordic combined, biathlon, and cross-country skiing. For example, a grinding machine for fine-tuning the athletes’ skis ready for competition is travelling in this container. The other container contains goods for the two Olympic villages helping the athletes to cope with the everyday life during the Olympic Games. There are, for example, 20 bikes for getting more quickly from one place to another in the huge Olympic villages, the Finnish Olympic Committee’s Executive Business Manager Ville Köngäs describes.
Among the goods headed for the Olympic villages there are, for example, 60 packages of Finnish coffee, 900 portions of porridge, 3000 energy bars, 200 mugs, and 150 posters for the decoration of the Olympic villages. In addition to these, there are 400-450 suitcases, as well as ski bags and hockey bags.
The sea containers were at the turn of the year on the East China Sea and they will arrive in the Busan port on 12 January 2018. After customs clearance procedures, the goods will travel to the scenes of the Winter Olympics, where they are available for use at the right time on schedule – just when they are needed. The final shipments to the Winter Olympics will be leaving Finland as air cargo from the Helsinki Airport by Finnair on Friday 19 January 2018.
– – We are pleased at CHS that we have been able to be a part of creating possibilities of success for the Finnish Olympic athletes. Our co-operations with the Finnish Olympic Committee has been fruitful and smooth during the entire Olympic project – and it has been a joy to work with these professionals, Heikki Mattola, CHS’ Director for Event Logistics, comments. At the moment, he is responsible for the logistics of his fifth Olympic Games.
Timetable for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympics of South Korea will be held in the town of PyeongChang of 9-25 February 2018. The Games include 15 different winter sports disciplines and during 17 days there are altogether 102 different competitive events.
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