Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko – the legends of Finnish ice dance become ambassadors for the ISU World Championships 2017

Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko have made Finnish figure skating history with up to four ISU Championships medals, making them the most successful Finnish ice dancers to date. The couple will take part in the 2017 ISU World Championships in Helsinki, this time as ambassadors for the event.

Kokko works in Germany as Director of Retail at Google, while Rahkamo works as Partner and Management Consultant at Pertec, as the Vice president of the Finnish Olympic committee and in the ISU Development Commission promoting figure skating.

This week figure skaters are competing in the European Championships in Ostrava, in the Czech Republic. 22 years have passed from the last European Championships medal that Rahkamo and Kokko won. During their career Rahkamo and Kokko not only pushed their own limits, but also the limits of ice dance. The couple still enjoys following ice dance.

Rahkamo expresses her joy over the current ice dancing situation in Finland. “It is wonderful to see that Finland has international level ice dancers again, and that there are also enthusiastic juniors. At the moment Finnish figure skating is fired by the right kind of spirit.”

They hope that all the young skaters would take the most out of the approaching World Championships as a learning experience.

“The Europeans in Helsinki in front of the home audience were one of the highlights of our career. It was at the same time both wonderful and frightening” Rahkamo remembers from their 1993 European Championships.

The Finnish Figure Skating Association organizes the 2017 ISU World Championships in Helsinki from March 29th to April 2nd. The competition is the most significant sporting event during Finland’s centenary celebration year. Up to 65 000 spectators and 200 athletes are expected to attend the event. The competition has an approximated 300 million viewers worldwide. The last time the World Championships were held in Finland was in 1999.