The soundscape of a cool Sunday afternoon is so quiet that in the mountain landscape surrounding Bormio, the sense of smell takes over. Cowbells jingle on both sides, sheep above quietly nibble on the grass.
– It is quickly seen, Susanna Saapunki laughs as he leads the way to his front door at 1,400 meters in northern Italy.
The homestead lies on a hillside surrounded by higher mountains, less than 20 kilometers from the Swiss border. Bormio’s skiing sanctuary basks in the sun at the bottom of the valley.
The arrival estimated the ground floor unit of the three-story house to be approximately 25 square meters. Big enough for two people, whose lifestyle is anchored by nature more than matter.
The mountains of northern Italy are a unique life experience that the spouse Ville Miettunen describes as part of the crisis of the thirties. In turn, it is almost a necessity for Saapung’s, 29, current sports career as a mountain runner.
The ceiling light comes on with a flash. They say it’s never even used, the smaller lamp in the corner is enough.
In a compact space, the sofa bed is in the middle, the open kitchen on the back wall. A bathroom in the corner, a closet and a small TV on the other wall. From the dining table you can see the hotels of Bormio on the horizon. The ceiling shakes as the host upstairs watches football. “You feel the result”, is how the Finnish residents put it.
The duo moved into their current home last winter. The area was familiar from previous visits, but now housing was sought for a longer period of time and at a fast pace, after the previous neighbor’s lady started smoking indoors.
– On my days off, I go and talk to sheep, cows, horses and cats. I go for a little walk by the river and talk to people. Normal country life, Saapunki says.
Finland’s only mountain runner is trying to close the gap to the top of the world second by second, even though he is still relatively new to the sport.
Until a couple of years ago, Saapunki was known as a cross-country skier. The Beijing Olympics loomed as a goal, but lung problems cut off the long-traveled road ahead of schedule.
Soon Saapunki found himself as a professional mountain runner as part of an Italian team. Together with personal sponsors, it enables current life and a new career. Although endurance sports are hard on both body and mind, avoiding freezing temperatures suits Saapung’s lungs better than skiing conditions.
– Sprint skiing was the worst for it. Right now, I’m very happy that after the games I don’t have to cough up my lungs in the yard, I don’t get crazy phlegm, and my lungs don’t hurt, he says, while literally knocking on wood.
For a few minutes, the couple debates whether the cat that appeared on the village street has become more familiar recently Lucy. Miettunen claims that yes, because the other cat that bullies Lucy would be bigger – maybe. Saapunkki disagrees, but cannot identify with certainty the neighbor’s pet frolicking next to it as the same myrtle that Finns occasionally take to protect their yards.
The cat’s identity remains a mystery. We’ll have time to think about it again tomorrow. Or next week. In the village of twenty houses, nothing more shocking will probably happen before then.
– When you don’t have a lot of great things and you have to struggle a bit in terms of living, you don’t always hope for more. In the morning, we heat the cabin and make coffee on the stove. Let’s go practice. Let’s take a look at what the village looks like, says Miettunen.
“It crashed right away”
Miettunen is himself a former Olympic-level athlete in vaulting. Now he plays a hybrid role in Saapung’s small core team. Father Kari Miettunen is Saapung’s coach, but visits Italy more at camps, bringing with him the much-awaited porridge delivery.
Ville, on the other hand, regularly helps Saapunk in training. He is also the one through whom Saapung became a mountain runner.
His career as a steeplechase ended after the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, and Miettunen wanted to start running. A couple of years later, the couple arrived in Italy for the summer while Saapung was still a national team skier.
– When I started going around the games, Susanna came by and wondered if I should try it myself. He thought he was pretty good. And it was so good that I decided that I could stop and let Sussu take care of the competition, Miettunen recalls.
– I thought for a really long time that it would be nice to get to the Games. When there was an opportunity to go, it crashed right away, says Saapunki.
A sport unknown to Finns is very popular in the alpine countries. There are three types of competition: a short vertical, a normal uphill race, and a so-called normal distance. Saapunkki is at his strongest in a normal uphill race, but says that the normal distance is already close.
The sharpest tip comes from Africa: Kenya, Uganda and Eritrea. The number one in the world is Kenyan Joyce Njeru, to whom Saapunki lost by 45 seconds in the normal uphill race of the World Cup. The gap between last summer’s two joint races has narrowed by several minutes. At the World Championships in Thailand at the beginning of November, Saapunki was sixth.
The exceptional oxygen absorption capacity combined with the small size give Saapung good snacks to succeed. The biggest handicap to the top is caused by displacement. The toughest competitors have been running all their lives.
Now kilometers are easily accumulated, because the narrow path to the mountain starts from the wall of the home. This time, Saapunki and Miettunen climb to around 1,800 meters at their highest altitudes. On the way, you will meet cows, horses, jogging skiers and a senior chasing his dog on a vespa that has run away from the yard.
The path is sometimes a small and stony route winding through a coniferous forest, sometimes a car road with postcard views in the direction of a steeply falling valley.
Saapunki talks about his intensive training on “flat ground”, where the height difference is only a few tens of meters. In skiing, it would already be a moderate pimple in an equally short section.
– I had to learn everything again. Skiing is a static sport with equipment. Running has a lot to do with nerves, Saapunki begins.
– As a skier, it is easier to train more quantitatively, as a runner, the individual exercises are harder. In skiing, the performance is more interval-like, so you can draw on the oxygen debt, but in mountain running, you lose by a minute if you don’t know your own race pace very precisely, Saapunki enumerates.
Three years all in the game
The arriving punk can barely keep from running into a race with the next cameraman. When the camera is asked for a little more leisurely speed around the bend, Miettunen, who is enjoying the sunshine on the bench, laughs at his wife’s desire to go.
He says that he tries to remind us of something other than result-oriented sports thinking.
– Mountain sports is not only a result sport, but also this way of life. You also have to be aware that it is a two-sided scale. If you achieve a lot, you feel a lot, but you have to accept that it hurts a lot when you fail.
– It’s a strength, but also the biggest drag. If someone gets hurt in that corner, it’s mostly the pain of achieving the goal.
After two days of observation, the determination is not surprising. Last winter’s proper training provided a leap in development, but completely new paths have opened up to the athlete’s horizon, which are pursued to the fullest.
The goal of the three-year project is to win World Cup medals. Reaching towards it has led to a small cabin in the middle of pastures.
– If I want to be one of the best in the world, we currently don’t have the opportunity to be in Finland. We thought of coming here for a while because we were looking for a bigger apartment from here. But this is in such a good location that we haven’t bothered to go anywhere, Saapunki shrugs his shoulders.