The expression is grim, the answer to the curiosity about the success of the exercise concise.
Ylen Sportliv visits the biathlon team’s test days in Vuokatti. Erika Jänkä steps off the roller skiing mat and the machine’s measuring equipment provides detailed information about the athlete’s pulse and speed, the frequency and slide length of the pushes, and the tilt of the mat.
In addition to these, one value is particularly important to Jänga. He takes out his phone.
Diabetes is a challenging diagnosis for an elite athlete. The last year has brought with it fear and uncertainty – but at the same time also a possible key to a breakthrough.
– A lot of really strange things have happened to me. Now, afterwards, it’s easy to think that this disease has affected them. But then we didn’t understand anything.
The doctor’s verdict: Career is over
Hochfilzen, Austria, December 10, 2022. Women’s pursuit at the Biathlon World Cup.
Erika Jänkä goes to the race, but never reaches the finish line. After the first vertical shot, his eyes turn black and he sinks into the snow. He leaves the stadium in an ambulance.
– I remember that I had a really good feeling before the race, and there were no indications of anything miraculous. But it turned out to be a career- and life-changing day.
– When I woke up, I thought what now? What is wrong with me? This top sport shouldn’t be this raw.
At the hospital, the doctors noticed shockingly high blood sugar levels. The diagnosis was diabetes.
– The Austrian doctors said that you won’t compete again, at least at the top level, Jänkä says and remembers that he immediately called the Finnish national team doctor in an emergency For Katja Mjösund.
– He refuted the claim completely, which was a huge relief. I wouldn’t have been ready to quit.
A month later, Jänkä was back at the World Cup. The shock state of the body had been detected and treatment started, and Jänkä was limping back. Latent tension was overshadowed by overwhelming enthusiasm.
– I was just so happy that I can do this again, which is what I want more than anything. I thought you were kidding, this is so cool! At home, it’s tense and probably scared in a completely different way.
Both mother and older brother have received the same diagnosis. Erika was also examined for diabetes as a child, and as an athlete, she regularly goes through all kinds of tests. Nevertheless, the disease was noticed only now.
According to Jängä, part of the reason is that the diabetes tests are so specific and his form of the disease (Mody 3) is so rare that it is difficult to detect the disease.
– Apparently, such an incredible state of alert was required to track it down.
Now Jänkä hopes that the diagnosis will bring solutions to the riddles surrounding the career. But there are still more questions than definitive answers.
Your desire to honor your older brother’s legacy
Shotgun, air rifle, pistol. Hobby, sport, work.
Today, Erika Jänkä has taken out a shotgun, because Sportliv wants to photograph her hunting in the woods of Vuokatti. When we move to the biathlon stadium a few kilometers away, an air rifle appears. The pistol is carried at the workplace on the eastern border.
Guns have been a part of Jängä’s life since childhood. While watching her older sister’s shooting range, little Erika desperately grabbed a gun for herself even before school age.
The older sister’s example also gave an impetus to the military path and later to the profession. As well as the older brother, whose fate was apt to strengthen Erika’s desire to follow in her siblings’ footsteps.
– We have always been a very tight and close family. And we have become even stronger after losing one of us.
When Erika was in the second grade, her sister started her voluntary military service, which gave rise to the thought: one day I will follow.
Jängä’s older brother had to struggle to get into the service. He would have been exempted because of his diabetes, but he wanted to join the army.
When her older brother later died in an accident, the importance of his fight grew even greater in Erika’s mind.
– He showed such strong guts and perseverance that I wanted to cherish his legacy by doing military service. It was a matter of his heart that that duty must be taken care of.
Military service eventually served as a gateway to a job, which now enables him to invest in sports.
After the turn of the year, Jänkä will be promoted to senior border guard after five years as a junior border guard at the Vartius border guard station.
While Vartius has recently been in the headlines due to Russian provocations, Jänkä has focused on biathlon. The Border Guard Agency grants top athletes 600 hours a year – about a third of their working time – for sports on their payrolls.
– This is the kind of support and security, both financially and emotionally, that I would have a hard time finding elsewhere. Apart from the Border Guard and the Defense Forces, there are really no other workplaces in Finland where you can train professionally while working. It’s a real pity and a pity.
Many of Jängä’s Central European competitors work at the border, in customs, in the police or in the military, which practically guarantees professional sports. He hopes that more people in Finland would get the same opportunity.
– The Defense Forces’ coaching group has been a big help, especially during the difficult stages of my career.
Answers to mystical riddles
Erika Jänkä made her World Cup debut in the spring of 2017. Expectations for the next season were high, but everything came down to health problems. The same thing would happen several times over the next few years.
He’s had everything from rose infection, sinus problems and an umbilical hernia to myocarditis and pericarditis. As well as frequent stress osteopathy and tendon problems that led to surgeries.
– At one point I heard that some thought I had already finished. But maybe I’m a little crazy, because I’ve never even thought about it.
Jänkä, 28, has competed in the Olympics and three World Championships and toured the World Cup for several seasons, but he is still waiting for his international breakthrough.
Now he hopes that the diabetes diagnosis will serve as the first step forward on his career path.
In addition to Jänkä and coach Antti Leppävuori, many doctors have wondered what miracle could be hidden in the background of recurring tendinitis and diseases.
Antti Leppävuori watch Erika Jängä’s frustrating training on the roller ski mat. The exercise gives a raw but honest picture of the last year. Because even though the disease is now known, the easy answers are beyond the rock.
There is little research information on diabetics who are elite athletes. In addition, Jängä’s inherited Mody variant occurs in only a couple of percent of all diabetics.
– His body does not react in the same way as others, which causes surprising situations. It is very difficult to predict and also solve problems when no one really knows what to do, says coach Leppävuori.
– When we go to extremely hard performances, the recovery of the body is no longer enough. He needs more recovery time from hard training than an athlete whose vital functions are completely normal.
I guess everything has a purpose.
Erika Jänkä
When the condition of most athletes starts to improve at the start of the competition season, Jängä’s wise man has pointed in the opposite direction. This year’s theme has been constant trial and error tactics.
– It is actually the only possibility to navigate forward, Leppävuori states.
Jänkä takes one gliptin tablet a day to stimulate his own insulin production. Injections would currently be too drastic a form of treatment.
On the other hand, he is grateful for the relatively mild medication. On the other hand, he lacks an optimal and proven effective treatment specifically for his disease, and more broadly for diabetics who do endurance sports.
Despite everything, he refuses to see his illness as an obstacle.
– I’d always rather be healthy, but I’ve never had any idea that I’d have to give up something. However, all my life I have seen people in my own family (despite diabetes) living full lives. Rather, this is perhaps the clarifying thing that brings answers to questions.
– I guess everything has a purpose. At least that’s what you have to believe.