Exel ski poles

In 1973, Exel assembled a team to develop products from composite plastic fibreglass pipe, for which production lines had been built at Exel Oy/Mäntykero in Mäntyharju. I was invited by Yrjö Aho, Director of Exel, to join a team of technical and marketing managers.

The models I make are produced directly from spark-engraved charcoal using a copy-engraving machine. Charcoal pieces are used to spark-machine the shapes into steel. In this way, the production mould halves are obtained by simply copying the shapes from the surface of the models I have made. This enables a multi-nozzle injection moulding production mould with a simple opening movement.

The olympics in Innsbruck in 1976 was a breakthrough for the racing poles. They got 40 Olympic medals, or 80 percent of the total. Lake Placid in 1980, Sarajevo in 1984, Calgary Olympics in 1988, they got 70-80 percent of all medals. The story continued in World Championships in Lahti in 1989. The poles I have designed have won 150-160 Olympic and 150-160 World Championship medals (most recently at the World Championships in Lahti). More than 10 million pairs of racing, cross-country skiing, trekking, special, children's and youth skis have been made.