Elian Lehto didn’t get to compete in the World Cup at the weekend, but he was still featured in the Swiss media.
Finland’s alpine skiing hope Elian Lehto couldn’t compete last weekend when the World Cup downhill competitions in Zermatt-Cervinia were canceled due to too much snow and wind.
However, Lehto, 23, had time to be incensed in the Swiss media. Lehto is training for the second season with the pacers of Switzerland, which is considered the world’s leading alpine skiing country.
Things have been made of Lehto Blick magazine and a TV channel SRF.
Blick is an interview with the former head coach of the Finnish national team, a Swiss Part of Inglin. He says that he immediately saw Lehto’s potential, but his attitude needed to be corrected.
According to Inglin, Lehto was too comfortable and did not push himself to the limits in endurance and strength training. Inglin tried to get the Finns to promise to work in an interesting way.
– In Finland, every athlete must reach a certain level in physical tests in order to participate in the association’s training camps. However, the limit was so low that Lehto reached it easily, even though he wanted comfort. That’s why I raised the limit, Inglin described.
The trick worked.
– Elian failed the first time. I gave him another chance. Then he trained so hard that he passed the test a second time.
Lehto made headlines last season when he got into the World Cup points in the downhill for the first time. Lehto succeeded in that already in his third World Cup competition and was 20th in the Val Gardena plunge. The last time the Finn had reached a tougher World Cup place in the downhill was in 2016, when Andreas Romar was 19th in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The reigning Olympic champion in the skydiving Beat Feuz also warms Lehto. The Swiss star ended his career last season. Feuz, the 2022 Olympic champion in diving and the 2017 world champion, also told Blick magazine a behind-the-scenes story. He was impressed by the Finnish language skills. Lehto had greeted Feuz in perfect Swiss German.
– At first I thought it was a young Swiss accountant. When I turned around, I was quite surprised because it was the Finnish Lehto, Feuz said.
He still has warm memories of the Finn. Feuz ended his career in January after the legendary Kitzbühel plunge.
– Elian gave a bottle of vodka as a homework present, Feuz revealed.