Iivo Niskanen blames his illness on his coach – reveals how bad the disease really hit | Sport

Kerttu Niskanen and Ristomatti Hakola disagree about the difficulty of Les Rousses’ slopes.

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The Skiing World Cup continues this weekend in Les Rousses, France. According to Finns, the most interesting name in the games is Iivo Niskanenwho is returning to the racetracks after a break of more than a month after illness.

In France, the free skiing 10 km intermediate start race will be held on Friday, the traditional sprint on Saturday and the traditional 20 km combined start race on Sunday. Niskanen will be there on Friday and Sunday.

Niskanen last competed in mid-December in Davos. After that, the Tour de Ski and SM skiing were missed. Now, before his return to the World Cup, Niskanen told about his unfortunate illness.

– In the end, it was a sinus infection. There was a long break and it was treated with antibiotics, Niskanen said.

– It was extremely bad luck to miss the Tour de Ski. I saw one person in nine days. My coach came to watch the training in a slight pain. He had a mask on, but it didn’t help, three days later I got sick myself.

According to Niskanen, the starting situation for the French Games is not good, but less competitions are needed now. The last time the hard power was unleashed on snow was at the World Cup in Davos a month ago.

– Hopefully, Friday will open places and Sunday will be a little more ready.

Sunday’s traditional race is clearly the main race of Niskanen’s weekend. Expectations for Friday’s free race are not high.

– I don’t expect much from myself. I hope the body accepts it well.

Les Rousses lacks tough Norwegians Johannes Kläbon and Harald Östberg Amundsen under.

– I haven’t looked that closely at who is on the line there. However, some Norwegians will come, isn’t there a strong enough resistance to this situation? In any case, the track is such that you can ski quite far in a group. I hope we will be in the games.

Kerttu Niskanen had time to sigh for a week

Kerttu Niskanen had time to catch his breath after a tough Tour de Ski, where he finished fourth in the overall results.

– I had time to sigh at home for a week, first to rest a little and then to exercise lightly. The feeling after the basic Tour, Niskanen said.

Kerttu Niskanen will participate in all the weekend’s races, but even he has the biggest expectations for the traditional race on Sunday.

– I hope that every day there will be a good result. Sunday’s race is the best for me. The track is quite fast and there is not much space in places.

Jasmi Joensuu is looking for a podium

Jasmi Joensuu is at least participating in Saturday’s sprint. He won’t race on Friday, but possibly on Sunday. In the sprint, the goals are high, because Joensuu has already reached the podium this season.

– The only big goal is to take a podium place also with the traditional one. It’s been pretty close and I feel like it’s even better for me than free. The sprint track is really steep. There will certainly be many twists and turns and funny situations. Nice track.

Hakola thinks the tracks are tough

Winner of three gold medals at the Imatra Championship Cross mat Hakola bet on Sunday’s traditional race in France.

– The tracks are completely different now. When I went around the standard distance course, I wondered if the world cup is even the hardest course. There are long steep climbs, Hakola said.

However, Kerttu Niskanen disagreed after hearing Hakola’s comment.

– It doesn’t go on the toughest slopes. Is Rise in a bit of a bad shape, skied too much in Finland. It’s steep in places, but by no means the hardest end, Niskanen laughed.

Hakola sets off to pursue a place in the top ten. Then you have to have a man, equipment and everything in order on the same day.