During the weekend, Ilkka Herola took the Finnish Championship medal in skiing, hill jumping and combined. Perttu Reponen won the combined Finnish Championship.
Sakari Lund,
Riku Salminen
Perttu Reponen won the combined Finnish championship in Rovaniemi in a competition with several special features. The best hill jumpers in Finland were present with fun. They didn’t have much skiing miles behind before the race. For example Eetu Nousiainen said he had skied five miles in the last five years.
After the hill section, the hill men were at the top Niko Kytösahon, Kalle Heikkinen and under Nousiainen. Reponen was fifth and Ilkka Herola seventh.
However, Herola had a wild program. He skied between the hill and ski section as an anchor for the Puijo Ski Club in the men’s post with an excellent section. He was the fastest in the anchorage. It was about an hour from the finish to the start of the combined skiing.
– I’ve never tried this, so I don’t know how it feels, Herola said after the message.
However, during the combined skiing, it quickly became clear how the race below affected.
– Yes, it felt pretty bad. I didn’t assume it was all that fierce, though. I thought. that it would be a little even, but it would become nothing at all, Herola stated.
Herola missed more of Repose on the ski section. The difference in the overall results was almost exactly two minutes.
Herola also took the Finnish Championship medal in the hill jump yesterday, so the weekend was really unique: a medal in skiing, hill jumping and combined. It is known that this has never happened before.
Rovaniemi also joked about Herola’s participation in Sunday’s fifties.
– I don’t know how many zeros it should be for me to go skiing fifty tomorrow. Perttu leaves, I’m going to watch it under the cover. I don’t ski a meter anymore, Herola smiled.
Gold medalist Reponen was pleased with his performance.
– Both sections were pretty even. Beauty gave a little leveling today. At first he got to ski seriously when he didn’t know how hard he was going to get from there.
The bronze was taken by a resident of the United States Niklas Malacinski, who has a grandmother in Rovaniemi. So the landscapes are familiar.
– At one time it was half and half, so I was in Finland for half a year and in the Yankees for half a year, Malacinski said.
His role models have been both American and Finnish combined athletes Samppa Lajusen and Hannu Mannisen under.
The mountaineers stayed far away on the ski section. Heikkinen was the best of the hill men, the difference to Repose was more than 10 minutes and the ranking was sixth. Kytösaho was tenth and Nousiainen 13th.
The 14-year-old won the women’s championship Minja Korhonen almost two minutes apart Annamaija to Aries. There were five women involved, including a hill jumper Susanne Forsström took the bronze.