Rosa Pohjolainen Levi’s World Cup weekend turned into a pancake. The goal of the super promise is now to get the mental side in shape and enough competition routine.
Rosa Pohjolainen returned to the Alpine Skiing World Cup circus in Levi last weekend after more than 18 months. However, the return of the 20-year-old super-promiser, who recovered from two major knee injuries, was a piece of cake.
On Saturday, Pohjolainen stopped after just 15 seconds when his inner ski slipped on the wrong side of the pole. On Sunday, after watching the track, he decided not to participate in the race at all. This decision got Urheilu’s expert Kalle Palander to spin his head.
Read also: Rosa Pohjolainen’s withdrawal made Kalle Palander’s head spin – this is how the head coach justified the decision
Pohjolainen emphasizes that the decision to withdraw was not easy.
– I thought about it a lot, pondered and thought about it, but at that moment I saw it as the only reasonable decision, said Pohjolainen, reached by phone from Levi.
– If I’m not 100% ready, then I won’t go there to fool around, test or anything like that. However, it is the World Cup.
Pohjolainen has previously scored World Cup points with Levi, and his performances have made Kalle Palander cry with enthusiasm. This year, Levi’s weekend left Pohjolainen with mixed feelings. He was happy that he was able to compete after a long time, but on the other hand, he didn’t really get anything out of the competition.
– I probably didn’t expect much from this first race weekend. More that I could get back to my own competition routines and feeling, he said.
– Maybe these races weren’t necessarily the ones that would have been good to start with. I feel that it is now in the past and now let’s move on.
“We need to get things together”
The head coach of the women’s national team who has coached Pohjolia for many years Mikael Kurki said in an interview with Urheilustudio over the weekend that the Finnish skier is physically fit, his knee does not hinder his movement and his skier has been very fast in training.
The same was also signed by Pohjolainen himself. He feels that he has progressed in physics, even though injuries have brought bumps in the road and rehabilitation has taken a lot of time.
Although the development has not been straightforward, many top skiers in alpine skiing have experienced the same. Finland’s best alpinists Tanja Poutiainen-Rinne and Kalle Palander also suffered from bad injuries during their careers.
– It’s up to you how you take those injuries, deal with them and move on, Pohjolainen said and admitted that he currently has the most to improve on the mental side.
– We have to get things together.
To keep the pack together, Pohjolainen has had the help of a sports psychologist, who has been helping him since he injured his knee for the first time in January 2021.
– It has helped a lot, especially when I’ve had to go through them at such a young age and in such a short period of time a couple of big injuries.
In dreams of an intact competition season
According to Kurje, a new plan is now being built for Pohjolainen, but in Pohjolainen’s opinion, his plans will remain the same when Levi comes to the race weekend. He is still in Levi and will count a few FIS races there next weekend. When the European Cup season starts in December, he will head to Europe.
For Pohjolainen, the FIS competitions mainly serve as a way to find a competition routine. If there is a result in the European Cup, he will return to the World Cup after that.
– Now I just want to finish the competition season and get back to the games. Let’s think more about the goals after that, Pohjolainen said.