22-year-old Sallinen received an invitation to the X Games invitational competition even before his first World Cup victory.
Joel Holma,
Simo Leinonen
– I would say that I am more comfortable in the air than in bed.
This saying is easy to believe when you see how Jon Sallinen spend his free time.
In the summer, Sallinen might, for example, feel pain on a bridge or a cliff and jump into the water stomach first, defying the pain. They say it’s hard to stay still in the summer.
– The idea is that you keep yourself as “open” as you dare and at the end you fold yourself on the link knife so that it doesn’t hurt so much. Usually the head and other places take a hit quite hard. There is no such thing as a mess in this sport.
However, doing swimming jumps is not Sallinen’s main sport.
Sallinen is a top freeski skier: in the sport, tricks are performed on skis in the air. In this sport as well, Salli is fascinated by its danger. The athlete says that he has broken his collarbone several times, but his career is still on the rise.
In December, 22-year-old Sallinen finished fifth in the snow chute of the freestyle world cup. At that point, the ranking was the best of his career in the World Cup.
– It seemed that I am among the top. If I succeed, there may be good places in the future.
The button success came early on Friday morning Finnish time, when he won the World Cup in Calgary, Canada.
Even before his victory, Sallinen received an invitation to the major event of the sport, in the opinion of some freeski skiers, to the X Games invitational competition, which is even more prestigious than the Olympics.
Sallinen received the invitation by email and was surprised.
– It’s great to get there. The main goal would be that I could make clean calculations and calculate as well as I can.
The X Games will be held in Aspen from January 27.
– Ever since I was little, I’ve dreamed of getting there. I already planned what I would do there when I was young, says Sallinen.
The season ends at the turn of February-March with the World Championships, which are held in Georgia.
Watch the video when Sallinen landed in Sipoo Talma in January.
“The best conditions can be found in North America”
Sallinen has already managed to get to big competitions before. The feeling of the big games was offered, for example, about a year ago at the Beijing Olympics.
Sallinen’s performance was ruined when he hit a cameraman in a snow chute in the middle of the race and stopped.
He still hears about this complaint, although it’s more of a joke.
– In the games there, it really hurt a lot. There was a failure and my collarbone suffered again at the same time. Let’s hope that nothing like this happens again at the X Games or other competitions.
This season, Sallinen has been able to train healthy with his new coach, who is from New Zealand.
Sallinen says that he mainly trains abroad.
– There are no good training opportunities in Finland at the moment, nor in the Nordic countries. The closest good training place is in Switzerland and Austria. The best conditions are found in North America. There are so-called prime conditions.
According to Sallinen, there is no snow chute or pipe from the early season in Finland.
– Ruka will have a pipe throughout the season if there is snow. There won’t even be a pipe this year. Due to the conditions, you have to travel in North America. The beginning of the season was spent in New Zealand.