Skiing Ruka Suomen Cup on the weekend on channels. The events are monitored moment by moment in the application and on ‘s website.
Iivo Niskanen, Kerttu Niskanen and Krista Pärmäkoski have been for a long time the Finnish skiers from whom results could be demanded. However, the sport desperately needs new leaders.
Recently, this kind of role has been assigned to someone who excelled at the World Youth Championships and anchored the relay medal for the Finnish men at last winter’s World Championships. To Niko Anttola.
Among the current young Finnish skiers, it is more realistic to expect a sprinter to achieve top positions in the coming years From Niilo Moilasen. The World Youth Championship winner from three years ago is on the path of a potential successful skier.
– Niilo Moilanen is one of those skiers who can be reasonably expected to rise to the top of the adult international ski slopes in the near future, skiing expert Kalle Lassila anticipates in Urheilu’s podcast.
There would be an order for new successes in Finland.
All three of the Finnish skiers who consistently reach the top three are over 30 years old. Behind them is a group of experienced athletes who are capable of top-10 speed at their best.
However, 22-year-old Moilanen has shown every year that he can steadily raise his level.
– When there are more years of age from twenty years and the level is in the top ten on a good day, it’s a pretty big jump from there to the top three. However, Niilo has been developing all the time and has been able to establish his level in the top 30 and twice in the semi-finals last season.
– It takes a year or two when you have to be able to fight for the top places in the finals and get there. That’s how Niilo becomes a world champion or an Olympic champion, Lassila pouted.
Breakthrough season
Moilanen rose to the attention of the Finnish winter sports audience in 2021, when he outright dominated the traditional sprint of Vuokatti’s youth World Cup skiing from the qualifying stage all the way to the final. In addition to his under-20 gold medal, he was about to win Finland’s first relay medal (silver) for boys in his age group in ten years.
Moilanen made his international breakthrough at the adult level last season. He reached the semi-finals of the World Cup for the first time, in the traditional sprints of Beitostölen and Les Rousses.
The athlete, also called Finland’s fastest male sprinter of all time, flashed his tremendous speed by being second in the qualifying round in Beitostölen and third in Lahti. At the World Championships in Planica, he made his debut in the adult competition.
Moilanen hasn’t experienced the big pain typical of a Finnish junior athlete when moving to the adult league.
– We have been able to raise the level very steadily. There have been no huge dips, but no huge leaps either. Steady work, which I believe will pay off later, says Moilanen.
At the end of the season, Moilanen is remembered for his triple crash in the famous J-bend of the Salpausselä stadium in Lahti. The Finn recalls the situation with humor.
– It has been laughed at with humor among skiers. Even a professional skier can throw pans like that three times in a row. Now that has also been experienced, Moilanen laughs.
Fast feet
Known for his quick feet, Moilanen has improved in his freestyle skiing over the past couple of years. However, the traditional sprint is a bit of a tussle, with which the young Finn can shake up a wild streak.
The potential at the adult level is indicated by the two top 3 times last season in the qualifying phase of the World Cup sprint.
– The strengths are in the legs and their speed. The legs have the capacity to produce power, and the physicality is transferred to shift skiing. Cross-country skis serve me best.
A major development target has been the improvement of flat thrusting.
– From the beginning of the season, the sprint tracks in Ruka and Östersund have profiles that suit me well. You can also use your legs well in Falun in spring, Moilanen enumerates.
Tough peers
Moilanen will be able to compete this year in his last World Junior Championships in the name of prestigious competitions.
As far as the adult competitions are concerned, the year without a prestigious competition offers opportunities for a young athlete capable of development to quickly learn about adult top sprints through the competitions.
– Now is a really good season to get the games under way and build a foundation. When there is a place to shoot, you are ready for it, Moilanen adds.
When Moilanen won the junior world championship, he left behind in the final, for example, tough competitors in the same age group, Norway Lars Agnar Hjelmeset and Sweden Edvin Anger.
The duo serves as a good example for Finns in terms of where the international top goes. Hjelmeset was fourth in last season’s World Cup sprints, and Anger, who is a year younger than Moila, advanced to the sprint finals no less than four times.
– It’s really great that we have followed the same junior path to the World Cup. Especially what Anger did last season was great to watch. He came to the World Cup and immediately skied from the final places. Such individuals rarely come.
2026 Olympic medalist?
Moilanen should have opened his season already a week ago in Olos, but the illness at the end of autumn has modified the original plan. The skier born in 2001 opens his season this weekend at the Ruka Suomen Cup.
Somewhat surprisingly, he is not participating in the traditional sprint in his bread sport, but is only competing in the ten kilometer traditional intermediate start race held on Sunday.
– We thought that two races to open the season would be too tough. We wanted to start with a normal trip. Get an intact draft and search for information about your own space, Moilanen says.
Lassila characterizes Moila as an extremely intelligent athlete who knows how to make sensible decisions like opening the season.
Moila is described as a kind and polite person. Moilanen recognizes himself from these mentions, but also reminds us of his fierce ambition. On the other hand, he wants to set goals realistically.
Even this season, he feels it’s more appropriate to cement his position as a semi-final skier than to go for his first podium place with great enthusiasm. At the same time, long-term goals mature in the mind.
– For example, the 2026 Olympics will have a traditional sprint. It is definitely an important year in my career and marked big on the calendar. We are now working and making plans for it. However, it is not appropriate to be too greedy, so that it does not go to waste.
According to Lassila, the next Olympics organized in Italy will be at the ideal point in terms of Moilanen’s development curve.
– After the sledding championship, it has been clear that we are going to the 2026 Games with medal goals. With his development curve, it is perfectly justified.
The Suomen Cup of the Skiing Ruka will be shown on the channels this weekend. Saturday’s sprints from 11:55 on TV2, Areena and the app. On Sunday, the women’s 10 km intermediate start race at 11:00 a.m. and the men’s corresponding race from 12:25 p.m.