Urheilu’s expert Kalle Lassila explains why there were so many crashes in Planica’s WC sprints. See a summary of crashes by clicking on the main picture of this story.
Planica World Cup skiing on channels 22.2.–5.3.2023. See the program and broadcast information of the World Ski Championships at this link.
PLANICA. The audience in the stadium shuddered time after time when, in the sprint race, at least one skier messed with his skis and fell. Finnish skiers suffer from crashes and falls Jasmi Joensuu, Joni Mäki, Niilo Moilanen and Ville Ahonen.
Sports expert Kalle Lassilan in my opinion, Planica’s sprint race combined all the things that cause stress in group skiing: tight corners, changes in angles and slushy snow.
Most of the crashes and falls happened in the final downhill bend. This was the kind of place that was already marked in advance and everyone knew its challenges.
– I’m sure everyone knew the place. At least for those who skied in the heats. And still it rattled, Lassila said and reminded that such events are part of the sprint.
The salting of the track aroused many different opinions. Urheilu’s experts also disagreed, because Aino-Kaisa Saarinen wrote in the MM chat that the race organizers will surely get a kick out of the renovation of the track, Matias Strandvallin thought that salting failed, but Lassila thought that salting was practically irrelevant.
The Finns have something to learn
Lassila reminded that those who were successful in the day’s race were always above the challenges presented by the track. Finns would have enough to learn in group skiing.
– The Finns have never really been at it from the best end. If there are a lot of corners and we go in a traditional race without tracks, then it is not suitable for Finns. Everyone has to learn that.
In his opinion, it’s about bigger things than the fact that a skier’s pole goes to the wrong side of the ski or someone else’s ski comes on top of his own ski.
– They are small details, but it is important to learn how to avoid those situations. A bigger reading of the game and other skiers is needed.
In Lassila’s opinion, attitude education is also needed in Finnish skiing, or at least this big question to be considered: if a track causes a problematic situation, the skiers think that the track is bad, and it needs to be changed.
In Lassila’s opinion, different courses should be taken as a challenge.
– The question should be more that this is a track like this, how can I beat the others on this track? That we could rather learn from this.