Johanna Matintalo, who was badly disappointed at the opening of the Ruka World Cup, scored a brilliant result in Norway. Matintalo believes that third place from Planica’s World Cup trip will also help him mentally.
Anu Karttunen,
Laura Arffman
Johanna Matintalo beat Beitostölen’s traditional skiing style to third place in the sprint race and achieved the best World Cup result of his career. Matintalo was a real lucky loser in the race, as he made it to both the semi-finals and the final after a time trial.
– Today, we went from each round to the next stage with a little sweat, Matintalo laughed.
He already noticed in the heats that this time he didn’t have enough sharpness for final decisions in the heats and semi-finals. In the final, however, he was better involved in the game.
– I need more of that sharpness at the end. A certain compression and sharpness should be found right from the start. I believe that I will get it through the games, especially when I can still get a little bit of energy and fitness.
To Ryka’s disappointment, balsam
On the opening weekend of the World Cup in Ruka, Johanna Matintalo was badly disappointed when her sprint race fell to a broken pole. Now he got a lot of good things from his success and increased self-confidence.
– Yes, that Ruka was quite a disaster. I wanted to believe in the background that everything is fine and the condition is definitely good, but it’s always really difficult when there are no results, Matintalo admitted.
– In that way, this makes it easier and frees me to do my own thing, when I get a very concrete result that the situation is really quite good.
The race weekend in Beitostölen continues on Saturday with the 10 km traditional cross-country time trial. It’s one of Matintalo’s strong sports, but he doesn’t know how tomorrow will shape up after the emotional rush of the sprint.
– Let’s try to recharge for tomorrow, because it’s also an important day. In Ruka, even ten went to the bottom, so I definitely want to try to ski as hard as possible tomorrow. This relieves the pressure from the rest of the weekend, Matintalo said and believed that the prize place has an important place mentally also when thinking about the World Championships.
– If you even think about the choices, this is certainly a liberating element. But if we are purely thinking about success in the World Championships, then we still need to find more speed and sharpness.