History
The first Finlandia-hiihto was held in 1974.
In the early 1970s, there were already several long ski races in Central Europe. Erik Pihkala - a keen advocate of healthy exercise and one of the leaders of Suomen Latu (founded in 1938) - was present at Marcialonga, Italy. He was asked why Finland did not have a race like Vasaloppet - where thousands of skiers from Central Europe already visited every year - as people on the same trip could take part to a race in Finland as well.
Finlandia-hiihto has been organized for more than half a century, since 1974. To celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2023 Lahti Ski Museum produced a history collection of Finski, which you can see here:
HIIHTO ?
Finlandia is not actually a word in a sense as it’s a hymn composed by Jean Sibelius in the late 19th century. Finlandia-hiihto's name originates from Finland and "hiihto" which means skiing. In our native language Finland is called “Suomi” and in the earlier days loan words were usually separated with hyphen and thus a semi-international name was created: Finlandia-hiihto.
Even though the name has remained the same since the beginning some variations have been used internationally - such as Finlandia Ski Marathon and Finlandialoppet. In 2020 we decided to brand the name FINSKI into our logo. Finski has been our petname for a long while and it's also the name of our mascot - Finski the polar bear.
The original route map of the Finlandia-hiihto 1974 from Hämeenlinna to Lahti.
The original logo from 1974.
