Iivo Niskanen, who recovered from corona, opened his World Cup season with the Tour de Ski, freestyle sprint qualifying. He plans to turn on the blinker for Sunday’s pursuit.
Anu Karttunen,
Laura Arffman
Iivo Niskanen had to open his World Cup season with perhaps the hardest possible trip, the freestyle sprint. However, Niskanen was at a good pace in the first round of qualifying, but then something happened.
– I fell over the embankment and drifted a bit off the skied track. I think 20 places dropped, Niskanen told Urheilu in an interview.
– All right until then, but really the second round went badly that way. Now, however, we are not talking about advancing, so it doesn’t really matter.
Niskanen was the 57th in the qualifier and was 14.10 seconds behind Norway, who won the qualifier Johannes Hösflot from Kläbo. The final stage thus remained a distant dream, but it didn’t bother Niska.
– It doesn’t hurt. Here was enough for today. Then you can go skiing tomorrow. Now this was such a necessary evil.
Niskanen has had to wait a long time for his opening start of the World Cup, because he fell ill with corona just before the World Cup in Ruka. He was able to return to training two weeks after his illness, but he has only been doing normal training for a couple of weeks.
Niskanen couldn’t really say whether his going and his knowledge on the race track corresponded to each other.
– It’s hard to say when there haven’t been many such things done in a year. Tomorrow will show more, said Niskanen, who last skied the World Cup sprint in Oberstdorf on New Year’s Day.
This season, on New Year’s Day, a significantly better distance will be skied to Iivo Niskanen, because a 10-kilometer traditional skiing pursuit race is on the program in Val Müstair.
So tomorrow the blinker will be on?
– Is for sure.
The final phase of the sprint starts at 2:55 p.m., live broadcast on TV2 and Areena, as well as on ‘s website.