Comment: The brush man blew up the real New Year’s party – Perttu Hyvärinen didn’t talk nonsense | Sport

At the latest, the farm boy from Riistavedi is more than just a mustachioed man marketing a food package in front of ‘s camera, who has a somewhat personal manager, writes Pekka Holopainen.

The biggest talking point of the World Championships in Planica last winter was torn from outside the ski slopes. Not far, but a few meters away.

Raised handsome brushes Perttu Hyvärinen Ylen appeared into the TV interview box in their hands the product of its own, recent sponsor, whose guerilla marketing in such a situation heavily violated the jointly agreed rules of the game and the athlete agreement between the athletes and the Ski Federation.

When in the background the volleyball legend didn’t hold his candle under any kind of media pile Olli-Pekka Ojansivuthe skier’s new manager, the match was smooth and the guerilla marketing campaign successfully finished.

Forest sciences graduate and farm boy Perttu Hyvärinen, 32, is an iron top athlete: a multiple World Cup medalist for young people, a long-time member of the A national team and a World Cup medalist in the 4×10 kilometer relay, who succeeded Iivo Niskanen brilliantly overshadowed by the heavy personal journeys of the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

A long shadow

That’s his and another hard face of the generation Cross mat Hakolan the long shadow, i.e. the peer of both Iivo Niskanen, was also mentioned. For the so-called general public, until New Year’s Eve 2023, Perttu Hyvärinen was pretty much a brush man pushing a can of food for the camera, whose “manazeri” strikes in the direction of Kuopio to add more wood to the already glowing red-hot publicity furnace.

That image landed on the silver ball on Sunday afternoon. Hyvärinen’s first place in the World Cup – albeit in a stage race – came right away as a sensational middle ball. Riistavesi’s likeable man threw a real New Year’s party.

At the Kuusamo World Cup a month ago, Hyvärinen performed evenly, but even then urged to wait for better. Strength training was a continued coach Mikko Virtanen with at the very threshold of the season, and with the problems of under-recovery, the body of the skier, who had struggled with the needs of at least one man in his career, was not yet open to super performances. Hyvärinen knew what he was talking about.

In Toblach, all possible help was available, i.e. at an unimaginable level in Finland – it’s worth looking at the overall result – an operating service truck, an optimal state of alertness, an average lubrication day of the main opponents and the absence of a few amazing athletes from the Tour, in the lead Iivo Niskanen, Simen Hegstad Krüger and Johannes Hösflot Kläbo. Success in sports is given to those who showed up.

Two years and two days ago Iivo and Kerttu Niskanen made history at the Tour de Ski in Lenzerheide. On the same day, they won a competition under the International Ski Federation as the first pair of siblings ever – an intermediate start in the traditional way of skiing, of course.

Kerttu Niskanen and Hyvärinen’s New Year’s parade isn’t far behind.

The Tour de Ski continues on Monday with the 20 kilometer (v) pursuit race. The men’s race starts at 11 a.m., the women’s at 1:30 p.m. follows Tour in this article.