For years, the Finnish winter sports community has been jealously watching how the darkest dominating individuals come from Norway. There is in cross-country skiing Therese Johaugia, Petter Northugia and Johannes Hösflot Kläboa.
In recent years, a biathlete From Johannes Thingnes Bö tremendous superiority has been seen. Last season, the ruler of the combined With Jarl Magnus Riiber had a ten-game winning streak.
In the ski jumping World Cup season, which starts this weekend, it will be 20 years since Janne Ahonen was completely overwhelming.
As many as seven first places came out of the first eight races. After Christmas, during the traditional Central European hill week, Ahonen continued his top streak by winning the races in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck.
Ahonen’s balance after the first 11 races was impressive: ten wins and one second place. In the 2000s, in men’s ski jumping, men’s combined, men’s and women’s cross-country skiing, and men’s and women’s biathlon, no one else has been able to match the performance of the beginning of the season in that sample (11 races).
Riiber, who five years ago grabbed 9/11 wins in the early season, has gotten closer than the Norwegian stars and all the others.
After several victories, Ahosen had a feeling that every top athlete would surely like to experience.
– While tying my shoelaces in the locker room, I thought that the others don’t have any chance. It was such a great confidence. Even though there were good seasons at other times, there was not such a great self-confidence.
The opening race of the season jumped at Ruka gave an indication of what was to come. Ahonen won with a wild 43.2 point difference, the German surprise to Alexander Herr. The Finn has the top slices of 144.5 and 142 meters.
– The season is just at the beginning. I hope the momentum is maintained, Urheilu’s editor at the time Riku Riihilahti told Ahonen at the end of the interview.
And it survived.
“The world level is there”
Accustomed to success, the 2004–2005 season was the best of his career in terms of results.
World Cup overall race win and 12 race wins. The third conquest of the Central European Hill Week. Suurmäki World Championship and two other World Championship medals.
The starting points for the season were great. In the previous season, Ahonen had celebrated his first overall World Cup title of his career.
The then head coach of the Mäkimaa team Tommi Nikunen recalls that Ahonen and Hautamäki clearly stood out from the others during the training season.
– We knew that physically Janne is in the best shape of his life. In addition, we were on good terms with the weight right from the beginning of the season.
– Janne and Matti were so superior to the others. I knew the world level was there. There was no doubt.
“Failure” was amusing
Ahonen immediately won four races in a row, both races in Ruka and Trondheim. For the first time he went without a win in the fifth race in Harrachov, Czech Republic.
Ahonen was also second from Poland by Adam Malysz after. If today in Finnish top sports, an alpine skier rejoices by Eduard Hallberg eighth place after the opening round, before there was a different sound on the clock.
The atmosphere and level of demands were at a different level in Finnish elite sports.
Ahonen remembers well the journalists’ comments after the first winless race. He returned to the first podium the very next day and eventually increased his winning streak to a record six.
– When I came in second place, the reporters asked if I have any more chances to beat Adam this season?
– I said that it isn’t, since it has been possible until now. Then I won many races in a row. When there was a “failure”, even though it was second place, they immediately asked why there were no more wins, Ahonen recalls an amusing moment.
Computers on the way
Nikuse remembers Harrachov’s weekend very well from 20 years ago. Nikusta was offended by the actions of the Norwegian judge for Ahonen in the opening race of the weekend, where Malysz was number one.
– He systematically gave two points less than the others. I confronted him at the team leader’s meeting.
During the competition week, the Finnish mountain team was the target of a crime. The computers of Nikusen and the assistant coach were stolen from the hotel rooms of the Finnish team. All teams stayed in the same hotel.
Nikunen believes that the theft was ordered to be done by a local, for example.
– Nothing was lost from the other rooms. I’m pretty sure it was a commissioned thing. We wanted to receive our training programs and physical information.
Nikunen can’t say whether it was jealousy or ambition. The machines or the culprits were never found.
The conversation worked
Ahonen won his last World Cup race of the season on January 22 in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany. The rest of the season was challenging.
When Ahonen’s all-time streak ended, another Finn took his place. Matti Hautamäki from Italy’s Pragelato won six races in a row until the weekend of the Planica flying hill. In the overall World Cup race, he finished third behind Ahonen and Norway Roar Ljökelsoy after.
So Hautamäki was able to do the same trick as Ahone from the beginning of the season. The Finnish duo still share the streak of World Cup competition victories with Austria by Thomas Morgenstern and by Gregor Schlierenzauer and Japan By Ryoyu Kobayashi with.
In the opening race in Ruka, Ahonen and Hautamäki were in the double lead after the opening lap, but Hautamäki finished fourth in the end.
The opening half of the season did not go as expected from another Finn. Hautamäki had special qualities, but the flip side of the coin was a toss of confidence.
Hautamäki was eliminated from the race in Sapporo. The head coach took the 23-year-old athlete in for an interview.
– I felt like giving up. The results started to fall. I said pretty badly that you’re wasting your own career if you have that kind of give-up mentality. You don’t give it your all.
In the next race in Pragelato, Hautamäki cruised to victory.
– I felt that a good cycle started from that evening. A lot happened on the spiritual side. I remembered from my career as a coach how much can happen in a short time if you succeed in motivating correctly, says Nikunen.
Nikunen reminds that Finland also succeeded brilliantly in terms of equipment in that season. Risto Jussilainen made it to the top three four times.
This is the flow state
On the other hand, the rest of the season was clearly more difficult for Aho. He was sick before the World Championships in Oberstdorf, held at the end of February.
– I coughed across my ribcage. I had the feeling that I wouldn’t be able to go to the Games.
– It was a really stressful place. The season had gone well and I was in top shape, but right before the World Cup you get sick like that. For a while he was in wonder. However, it was managed with honor, says Ahonen.
Aho’s side was still bothering him at the beginning of the games in the normal hill race. A huge surprise Rok Benkovic’s (SLO) won the race, the Finn was third. From Suurmäki, Ahonen achieved the most recent of his two personal race victories.
We often talk about an athlete’s flow state. Ahonen had previously thought that the feeling in question did not even exist.
– In that season, I noticed that such a thing exists. While putting on the boots, I thought that no one could do anything for me. If there’s no accident, I’m damn hard to beat.