Due to the fall of Erik Valnes, Ville Ahonen’s race was also ruined.
Planica World Cup skiing on channels 22.2.–5.3.2023. See the program and broadcast information of the World Ski Championships in this link.
Planica’s World Cup sprints were tinged with falls and concussions. Partly because of that Ville Ahonen was surprisingly the only Finn in the semi-finals. However, the 28-year-old World Cup debutant was defeated by the Norwegian star in the semifinals By Erik Valnes a victim of a computer hack.
The race of Ahonen, who was skiing behind Valnes, was ruined in the situation. Valnes fell directly in front of Ahonen.
The TV pictures showed how Valnes hit his broken ski. Finnish men’s coach Ville Oksanen showed his disappointment with the biggest gestures.
– Yes, it’s sad for Ahonen. He was very well on his way. Skiing looked good. For coaching and maintenance, this is such a situation that they hope the athletes get even the result that is acceptable, expert Kalle Lassila stated in the TV broadcast.
In ‘s digital grandstand Aino-Kaisa Saarinen also regretted the situation.
– How can you have such bad luck? Now we can’t help but regret Ville’s luck, the ex-top skier who is part of ‘s expert team wrote in Urheilustudio’s MM chat.
– This was a hard performance from Ville, even though he was unfortunately the victim of Valnes’s knockdown. There was nothing you could do about it.
However, Ahonen reached the top ten in the final results, as he was fifth in the semi-final.
– I really didn’t expect this. So much hurt and happened. The end result is top notch, what I expected. I still have to say that it’s sad, Ahonen described his race.
– There is still work to be done to ensure that someone doesn’t fall down.
About other Finnish men Joni Mäki and Niilo Moilanen were left in the preliminary rounds. Lauri Vuorinen taival ended with qualifying. Among them, Moilanen also fell in the same place as Valnes. Jasmi Joensuu fell on the women’s side. Internationally, more skiers than ever went in the heats of the World Cup sprint.
On the sprint day, the salting of the racetracks spoke volumes. In Planica, the sun beats down so hard during the day that the slopes melt. The race organizers decided to salt the track on the morning of the sprint day. .With salting, the surface of the track should be more icy. Now, however, according to the skiers, salting had no effect.
Aino-Kaisa Saarinen strongly criticized the race organizers for the situation when she was asked about crashes in the WC chat.
– This much shouldn’t happen and happen, top skiers aren’t that bad at staying upright. The track is now so soft and besides, the track is really twisty, which makes the track really difficult to ski, Saarinen said.
– The organizers will surely get a kick out of the renovation of the track.