Refereed article in compilation book (A3)
Sports Participation in Finland
List of Authors: Pasi Koski, Kati Lehtonen, Hanna Vehmas
Editors: K. Green, K., T. Sigurjónsson, E. Å. Skille
Publication year: 2019
Book title *: Sport in Scandinavia and the Nordic Countries
Start page: 40
End page: 62
ISBN: 978-1-138-05215-4
eISBN: 978-1-315-16797-8
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315167978
Finland is a Nordic but not a Scandinavian country. This geographical and semantic point reminds us of Finland’s more general cultural, as well as linguistic, distinctiveness. Although part of the Swedish kingdom for approximately 700 years and, subsequently, a Grand Duchy of Russia for more than 100 years, Finland gained full independence in 1917. As the Nordic country that lies closest to the ‘East’, and Russia in particular, the influence of both Western and Eastern cultures is recognisable in Finnish society, and nowhere more so, perhaps, than in sport.
As with very many Western countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the promotion of physical activities in Finland was linked to the issue of national defence (e.g. Kokkonen, 2015). Unlike its neighbours, however, the development of sport was closely associated with the process of political independence and the creation of national identity, especially in the form of elite sport. Finland has typically been among the most successful countries, in relation to the size of its population, not only in terms of elite sporting success but also in levels of sports participation and physical activity.