Kaisa Mäkäräinen will be seen in real action at Easter, when her home club organizes the championships in Kontiolahti.
Several Finnish media reported on Thursday that the former biathlon star Kaisa Mäkäräinen will return to the competition tracks in their main sports when the biathlon championships are held in Kontiolahti on March 30-April 1.
Mäkäräinen, 41, ended his international biathlon career in 2020. In March 2022, he returned to the biathlon championships in Oulu, winning one championship gold (relay) and two championship silvers (quick race and joint start). Mäkäräinen has not competed in biathlon for two years.
After his international career, Mäkäräinen has also competed in, for example, SC skiing and trail running.
Mäkäräinen, who has represented the Kontiolahti Athletes throughout his career, published pictures from the Kontiolahti biathlon stadium in the story section of Instagram on Thursday. He said he would participate in the message and “maybe a quick trip”.
The relay is contested on Saturday and the sprint on Monday. On Sunday, there is a joint start in the program, and Mäkäräinen’s name is also on the start list for the time being.
Mäkäräinen, who works as an expert for Urheilu, also tells what the return is all about.
– The root cause is that my home club organizes the Championship.
Without Mäkäräinen’s participation, the Kontiolahti Urheilijat probably wouldn’t have been able to put together a women’s relay team for the World Championships. Mäkäräinen says that the relay team is partly made up of “retirees”. Finished his career a year ago Nastassia Kinnunen had to stay aside at the last minute.
– That is the basic reason that I am here at home and the competitions are organized by the home club. If the games were somewhere else, it is certain that I would not have gone.
So it’s more about a spontaneous participation than a long-considered return.
– I’m not really prepared in any way. Last week and this week, I’ve been shooting a few times just because I don’t have to go into the competition completely cold.
Mäkäräinen will miss the joint departure “pretty sure”.
– As far as skiing here, I’m not in the condition to be able to ski three days straight for the Games, or even two days. Not much intensive training was done in the winter. If the message goes well, I might be in the sprint race on Monday.
– I even told the club to remove that name from the joint start, but they hadn’t yet, Mäkäräinen laughs.
Well, how do you feel when you get to help your home club and compete in your own sport after a long time?
– Well, I can say that the last time I was at the World Championships (2022), it was a much more relaxed and enthusiastic feeling. Now it’s been time to squeeze its blood… First of all, there are terrible blisters here. I know that there will be really tough races.
– There are really no expectations. When you haven’t trained for them. Of course, I went for a run in the winter, when I had time from other commitments. Shooting is just as much of a lottery as before, the world champion grumbles.