When Iivo Niskanen wakes up after a performance like this and whips out his tools, it would be nice to know what is really enough for him, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen sports reporter
HONEYMOON. Gunde Svan was hot as hell after the 50 km race at the Sarajevo Olympics. A teammate who started five minutes later Thomas Wassberg had just slipped under the finish coat and pushed Svan to silver in the competition.
The target of Svan’s rage was not Wassberg, but the coaching management, who had placed Wassberg in a more favorable lottery group to chase after his younger brother’s back.
So let’s go to November 29, 2009. Petter Northug seemed to have already said goodbye to the fight for victory, but in the last kilometers he gets excited to have started 11 minutes earlier Maxim Vylegzhanin of intervals; at the finish line, the clock remains on the Norwegian green by 1.2 seconds.
14 years later
14 years later, the same man watched from his computer in Ruka’s press center how the number 66 started Martin Löwström Nyenget took Kuusamo with a fierce ten (p) for his second World Cup long-distance competition win in a row. About 2.9 seconds remained behind Iivo Niskanen.
– The meaning of the starting number in such a situation is absolutely huge. I think this would have turned around if the starting numbers had been the other way around, said experience expert Northug.
Niskanen’s coach thought the same Olli Ohtonen, of course, faithful to his style with slightly more moderate words. Niskanen’s fifth home win in Ruka was caught up in this detail.
Because of last season
Last season, which started with Niskanen’s corona infection, was unsuccessful. A very modest 266 points were accumulated in the pot from the World Cup, and based on that, the starting number for the toughest faces to chase was determined.
Pushed from the winner’s chair at the last moment, Niskanen showed his temperament by swinging his expensive carbon fiber poles, but suddenly he already saw the silver lining of the cloud.
Skiing looked like a familiar, relaxed and absorbing Niskase in terms of musculature and oxygen intake, but the main character felt that there was an opportunity to take the performance level even further.
Good omens
Then let’s see with what certainty Niskanen’s continuation could have been predicted from the results of Kuusamo’s traditional interim start. In the 2016–17 season, he took first place both in Kuusamo and in the World Championships in Lahti.
In 2017 Kuusamo won third place and in 2018 Pyeongchang won the 50 km Olympic gold. In the 2021–22 season, only Niskanen’s watch stayed green in Ruka, the Olympic victory of the same distance clicked in Beijing. Only in the 2014–15 season did the young man’s kuti, who had already paid his tuition fees, remain in the pipeline, even though the season started with a win at Ruka.
A repeat at Holmenkollen?
Karrikikonen can say that Niskanen lost to a one-handed man on Saturday. In August and September, Martin Löwström Nyenget trained one arm completely out of the game, which means that Ruka certainly did not see all that was possible about his upper body’s ability to generate power.
The main goals of Niskanen’s non-competitive season are to win the Holmenkollen classic in March, i.e. 50 kilometers (p). It’s big on Nyenget’s calendar too, and there won’t be a big multiplier if Saturday’s top two are offered in the same positions.