Football, skiing, athletics, volleyball, skiing, dancing, swimming, trampoline, forest camping, yard games, mopeding and much more.
The talented sisters’ selection of sports was plentiful. They played a lot of sports together in their childhood and youth.
Both eventually became top athletes, but they chose different sports. One chose a summer sport, the other a winter sport. Big sister Jasmin Kähärä24, skis competitively and has a little sister Jessica Kähärän22, sport is athletics.
Jasmin already represented Finland at the Beijing Winter Olympics in sprint skiing. Jessica Kähärä represented Finland for the first time at the adult level at the European Athletics Championships in Rome. The sports are long jump and triple jump. He also dreams of entering the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris.
Often, siblings in a sporting family, perhaps even without realizing it, challenge each other to better performances. It’s also more comfortable to play sports together.
Both of Kähärä’s siblings have achieved prestigious medals in youth competitions.
Big sister Jasmin won World Cup gold in sprint skiing at the Under-23 Games in Whistler, Canada in 2023.
Little sister Jessica received two medals from the under-18 European Championships in Hungary 2018. She won silver in the high jump and bronze in the triple jump. Last summer, he jumped bronze again in the triple jump at the under-23 European Championships in Espoo.
The next goal could be adult competition medals from skiing and athletics for the same family. Kähärä’s sisters would have the opportunity to write history there.
Being versatile has helped in development
The sisters have an age difference of just over a year. Jasmin was born in May 2000.
Jessica was born in August of the following year. Siblings’ mother Catarina Svenlinwas one of the best volleyball players of the Finnish national team and the whole family is very athletic.
Already in childhood, Jessica and Jasmin spent a lot of time moving around in the yard and training in different sports. Active childhood exercise has been a great help in the career of a top athlete.
– Certainly incredibly. Such versatile things to do. As a child, I tried a lot of different sports, says Jessica Kähärä.
Versatile and abundant work created a good foundation for the coming years.
– When you specialize in a sport, the foundations have already been laid in childhood. Then I was able to focus more on the development of other features, characterizes Jessica Kähärä.
Jasmin Kähärä hugs her sister.
– Absolutely, there is such a natural ability to make any kind of movement. There are team sports, individual sports, a little endurance, speed endurance, and resilience, affirms Jasmin Kähärä.
He brings up soccer, which was the sisters’ number one sport throughout elementary school.
– If there is running on the field all the time, then there will be endurance and changes of direction. Along with athletics, it has given me a good foundation, says Jasmin Kähärä.
Sports in backyards and fields
Curls are born in Mikkeli. In the yards of our childhood homes, we have played with each other and with friends.
– We held our own similar futsal tournaments. We played one-on-one and exchanged flags in our playhouse. It was that kind of competition agency, recalls Jessica Kähärä.
There were boys of the same age living next door, with whom Kähärät enjoyed playing and playing outside.
– We played all kinds of things with them, ten sticks on the board and traditional games like this, which perhaps less children today play, recalls Jessica Kähärä.
When Jasmin Kähärä was in elementary school, the family moved to a house with a backyard well suited for sports.
– It served as a pretty good soccer field and running track. There was a long jump place and a trampoline, and everything else was always something to do, says Jasmin Kähärä.
– I feel that we had different qualities. I was really slow when I was little, Jasmin was much faster than me, recalls Jessica Kähärä, who ran for silver in the speed hurdles.
The siblings have helped each other develop because there was always a friend doing it. At first, Jasmin was slightly ahead of Jessica as the big sister.
– Pretty quickly, especially in the jumping sports, Jessica came alongside and passed. Perhaps, however, we have applied a little to different sports or even to playing venues, as in football, says Jasmin Kähärä.
A javelin was also thrown and dad built a long jump spot in the backyard out of a sandbox.
– We didn’t have running competitions, but maybe then we competed in jumping sports. They were actually both of our strengths, especially the long jump, says Jessica Kähärä.
Neither of the sisters remembers that there were really any strict arguments between them.
– Yes, we have competed, but maybe more in a good spirit, not really, says Jessica Kähärä.
The ski fly would bite Jasmin harder
In winter, Kähärä’s sisters also participated in skiing. They were on skis since they were little, but the real enthusiasm hit in elementary school.
– I would remember that in 2008–2009 a similar ski fly bit quite hard. With that, we went more actively to the track ourselves, says Jasmin Kähärä.
The siblings were glued to the screen as their idol Virpi Kuitunen and Aino-Kaisa Saarinen wish Finland success.
– Virpi and Aikku, of course, were at the peak of their careers at the time and struggled a lot with each other. It turned me on a lot, recalls Jasmin Kähärä.
When Jasmin moved to middle school, football stayed and skiing became the main sport. Athletics was a good side sport supporting skiing. In the early years of high school, he was still involved in the SM relays, but more active athletics remained until middle school.
The choice was not bad, because Jasmin Kähärä has won the youth WC gold in sprint skiing with traditional skiing, although free skiing has been stronger.
– It did bring credit to the fact that when everything falls into place and you can develop a little more, you can also manage with the traditional, says Jasmin Kähärä, who currently trains with the national team athletes and lives in Vuokatti.
He has also fulfilled his childhood dream of skiing in the Olympics.
– It was realized four years ahead of schedule. I had calculated that I would ski in the Olympics in 2026, but surprisingly, I made it to the Olympics in 2022, says Jasmin Kähärä.
In skiing, a good streak starts and Jasmin wants to measure her potential in all sports, but the main journey has been found.
– Next year there will be a free sprint at the World Championships. That’s where the best rankings have come from, so you can consider it the main trip, says Kähärä, who trains about 800 hours a year.
Jessica has too many good sports
The parents drove the sisters to competitions and encouraged them from a young age, but did not force them. This is how sports and competing became meaningful and fun.
– That competitive spirit is just so strong that you want to constantly improve yourself and get ahead, describes Jessica Kähärä.
He stopped skiing at the age of 13 and took up athletics as his main sport.
Football continued to be his parallel sport for a while, but that too soon disappeared.
– Within athletics, I did a really diverse range of sports until I was 18, he says.
The multi-talented Jessica Kähärä has three prestigious youth competition medals in athletics.
The speed fences have also been run at 1:30 p.m. without much training.
– At one point I only tried the high jump, but then I felt that it only resulted in injuries. Maybe that’s where I learned the hard way that versatility suits me.
Jessica Kähärä had major ankle surgery in the fall of 2021, as a result of which she stopped high jumping completely. The best result was 190, which he jumped in the winter of 2019, at the same time setting aside the Finnish record for 19-year-olds.
After the surgery, he returned to the fields in 2022. The choice of sports has been a bit challenging, but the sports are now the long jump and the triple jump.
– I can’t really decide which of them is the number one sport. At the moment, both sports can be taken forward, says Jessica Kähärä, who lives in Jyväskylä.
Kähärä reminds that there are examples of athletes in the world who are able to do well in both the long jump and the triple jump.
The cabin is an important place
In the early 90s, Isä-Kähärä bought a cottage for the family near Mikkeli.
The cabin is located by the lake and allows for versatile exercise.
– Whenever there is an opportunity, we try to come here. In the winter, they come to fry sausages and you can even go to the sauna here during the day, says Jessica Kähärä.
There is a pier on the beach. Next to it is a trampoline from which you can jump into the water. The cottage’s backyard has a volleyball court and old soccer goals.
The cabin has been run around and the cabin road has been dusted with mopeds and quad bikes.
– We swam a lot and then when we got the ball over the beat net, we started playing beat. Berries have been picked and collected in the forest, says Jasmin Kähärä.
The cottage is surrounded by tens of hectares of forest. The sisters help their father with the planting of seedlings, whenever they have time from their busy schedule.
– Father makes the biggest fuss, but when we get to help, we help, says Jessica Kähärä.
Today, the sisters encourage each other even more than in childhood.
– Maybe now you notice more that you follow other people’s races and send cheers and congratulations after the races, says Jessica.
Jasmin also likes athletics and follows her sister’s competitions mainly on TV, but also on the spot.
– If there is a GP race that I can go to, I’ll try to make sure that at least once in the summer I can watch one of Jessica’s races.