Archinisis Blog: XC Finland Testimonial

How Archinisis GPS Data Transformed Finland’s Cross-Country Skiing Race Preparation

In elite cross-country skiing, marginal gains make the difference between the podium and the pack. For Finland's national team, unlocking those gains meant going beyond traditional coaching and into the realm of data performance technologies.

We spoke with Olli Ohtonen and Juho Halonen, performance analysts of Finland's cross-country skiing team, about how Archinisis has transformed their training routines and race preparation.

The team has been using Archinisis' system for five years. What sets Archinisis apart isn't just its ability to track speed or position, but its capacity to capture every stride, every movement, and every push, all precisely synchronized with GNSS (GPS) data accurate to the meter.

Selfie with the coaches and performance analysts

Raby Diallo: What are three benefits you've experienced on performance as a result of using the system?

Olli Ohtonen: With more insights, coaches can plan the next steps based on objective analysis. Subjectivity can't influence how the coach works with athletes anymore. Even minimal differences, highlighting weaknesses and strengths, are detected. This can't be done with the naked eye. Trust and understanding between coaches and athletes are improved.

Juho Halonen: We don't measure every practice session, usually once or twice a week. When we do, we use the segment comparison feature. Being able to compare segments helps in noticing improvements, and how other factors - like adrenaline or fatigue - influence performance results. This amount of data allows for an average of the different parameters taken in account, and presents a baseline for coaches as guideline to plan their strategies.

Olli Ohtonen: Sprints are an important type of race; coaches often ask for sprint race analysis. The tactical aspects that Archinisis' system can detect during sprints is exactly what we need. Speed intervals is a good way to use the system, it helps coaches see what should be done to optimize the athletes skiing to get faster.

Archinisis' system is a multifaceted tool. It can be used to analyze many different parameters that contribute to an athlete’s performance.

Raby Diallo: What surprised you most about the system?

Olli Ohtonen: The accuracy is really good, I would say. It can differentiate all the techniques, and what's impressive is how well it detects and separates the movement cycles. Based on how the sensor moves, it picks up everything.

That level of detail led them to scale their use of the system from 10 sensors to 25.

Raby Diallo: What was your main concern that would have prevented you from buying the system, and what put your fears to rest?

Olli Ohtonen: Well, it wasn’t the cheapest, but I knew Benedikt before, and we had several discussions about the product. It helped in grasping how beneficial it could actually be for us. Those conversations put our minds at ease, helping us to make the jump to purchase. At the beginning we were concerned because it was a start-up. Would it survive? Will he have enough customers? Will he have the resources to continue developing the system? Happily, those concerns were put to rest quickly. We love to see how Archinisis has grown and how the system keeps improving.

Olli Ohtonen has been working alongside Archinisis since the early stages of Archinisis. Their trust and support are a constant drive for the company to strive towards bigger milestones.

Picture showing the performance analysts at work.

When talking about how Archinisis has shaped their training sessions, especially when preparing for a specific race, Juho Halonen mentioned how they combine Archinisis with other technologies. One of them is a virtual environment system with tracks, which allows athletes to simulate race conditions regardless of meteorological factors. When they integrate Archinisis GPS data, they are able to adjust the virtual tracks to reflect exactly how the real course will present itself.

Juho Halonen: We use a virtual environment system with tracks, and when we measure using Archinisis, the data is so high quality that we can feed it directly into the virtual models. The GNSS is extremely accurate - it's reliable enough to use across different systems.

Picture of a staff outdoors preparing the sensors

Raby Diallo: If you didn't have the system anymore, what would you be struggling with?

Olli Ohtonen: The coaches have now learnt how to use data, and are still learning alongside the system's growth. Taking it away would change our whole training strategies. If it was taken away, we would have to find another system, we can't imagine working without it. And it would be hard to find a replacement, Archinisis is a one of a kind system. There aren't many performance analysis tools for cross-country skiing that offer the same results as Archinisis does.

For Finland's cross-country ski team, Archinisis delivers more than just data – it brings clarity, precision, and confidence into every race. With accurate GNSS and IMU tracking, it's now a vital part of their high-performance toolkit.