Nedenstående er en pressemelding fra Riitta-Liisa Roponen, gjengitt i sin helhet: 

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Dear Ski Friends

I hope this finds you well

I am Riitta-Liisa Roponen professional cross country skier from Finland

Unfortunately I have to inform you that I cancelled my contract with Long distance team snowproof racing today and I am not any longer with team. There is always several reasons which are behind this kind of cancellation.

Officially I had to make this decision because I did not get my yearly allowance during the season 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 even that it was promised many times.

In Addition there was several other reasons for this: During the last 2 years I have heard lot of rumours that Marc Hager (team Director) have financial problems with athletes and people around the team and in this kind of environment I do not want to work with.

Last year I won the FIS marathon cup and I was very exiting to training hard for upcoming season to be even stronger in Marathon cups and also in Falun (world championship).

Now I continue to training with same goals individually and I am still member of finish national team. I hope that I can find good solution to do some of those nice marathon cups also during upcoming year.

My Coach and husband (Toni Roponen) tried to help team from the coaching point of view but naturally he is also stopping to help team because of this difficulties (Toni was not officially team member).

I hope you all understand my decision and I really looking forward to compete in high level next years but its need to be done in honest / good environment.

Best regards and hope to see you in ski tracks
Riitta Liisa Roponen

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Fotnote
Langrenn.com er kjent med at også norske aktører er berørt av manglende betalinger fra Marc Hager og hans Snowproof Racing Team, og da summer helt oppe i størrelsesorden seks siffer.