The skiing season continues this weekend at the Jällivaara World Cup in Sweden. shows the competitions on its channels. Watch the live broadcasts at this link.
The weakest competition in 25 years.
This was hardly the first thing that flashed to mind when the women’s 20 km joint start race was packed in Ruka on Sunday. To everyone’s surprise Vilma Ryytty was 28th as the best Finn before the top skiers of the national team Krista Pärmäkoski and Kerttu from Niska. They finished 31st and 32nd.
When looking at the intermediate and mass starts in free skiing in the World Cup and prestigious competitions, the last time the best Finnish skier was found lower on the results list than Ryytty on February 5, 2010. At that time, who was on loan from biathlon Kaisa Mäkäräinen was in 38th place, the spearhead of the Finnish two-person team at the Canmore World Cup in Canada.
Although Finland’s best cross-country skiers didn’t bother with Canmore. Ten days later Riitta-Liisa Roponen finished sixth in the 10 km intermediate start at the Vancouver Olympics.
When at least one of the top skiers of the women’s cross country team has participated, a worse team result than the one on Sunday in Ruka can be sought from more than a quarter of a century ago. The race in question took place in Falun on March 11, 1998: Salonen’s fairy tale was 29th as the best Finn at 5 kilometers before Milla Jauhoa (now Shin) and Piia Tarvaisa in places 33 and 47.
“Top 10 as realism”
Freestyle skiing has always been a lilliputian in Finnish cross-country skiing compared to traditional skiing.
From time to time there has been a result. Kerttu Niskanen achieved Olympic bronze in 30 km in Beijing in 2022 and Matti Heikkinen World Championship bronze at 50 kilometers in Lahti 2017. A year later, at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, Pärmäkoski won the bronze in the 10 kilometer intermediate start race by Marit Björgen with.
In women’s skiing, freestyle skiing is specially combined Riitta-Liisa to Roposefor which faster advancement technology has been clearly stronger than traditional ones.
When looking at the results of the last ten seasons, still using the intermediate and mass starts in the open as a criterion, Pärmäkoski, Niskanen and Roponen have brought 88 percent of all Finnish women’s placings into the top ten in the World Cup and prestigious competitions.
Pärmäkoski has been in the top 10 28 times, Niskanen 21 times and Roponen 7 times.
In the graphic below, you can click on the rankings of Finnish women from recent years.
As the graphic above shows, behind Pärmäkoski, Niskanen and Ropose, the freestyle skiing competitions have not caused significant squeals of joy on the couches. In the last ten seasons only Laura Mononen, Anne Kyllönen, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen and the loan athlete Mäkäräinen have reached the top ten in the free intermediate and mass starts – and a total of eight times.
The previous top 10 ranking in the World Cup, which is not the handiwork of Pärmäkoski, Niskanen or Ropose, is from January 2017. At that time, Mononen finished tenth.
The final ascent of the Tour de Ski, the chases, and the historic women’s 50 km mass start in Oslo, which was skied last March, have not been included in the aforementioned statistics. Eveliina Piippo ranked tenth. However, the result is not comparable, as no less than eight of the best 11 of the intermediate start of the World Cup in freestyle skiing held two weeks earlier were missing from the line.
Head coach of the national team Teemu Pasanen admitted on Wednesday that the new top 10 finishers will be under a rock in the coming months in the World Cup.
– Free has much more competition than traditional, so the top places are tighter. In free time, we can’t expect terribly top ten results for women. Kerttu and Krista are certainly in that category in a normal race, Pasanen said.
The head coach stated that a large part of Ruka’s exceptionally weak result is due to ski selection and sharpening. According to Pasanen, these two factors are emphasized during free time, especially now that fluoride creams are prohibited in the World Cup.
– Vilma (Ryytty) skied really well for her level. In both women and men, huge differences were seen within the teams; our service was certainly not the only one (partly unsuccessful). We didn’t succeed in Ruka’s equipment anywhere near as we would have hoped.
– So Kertu and Krista’s situation is not quite as bad as Sunday’s race showed. However, the reality is that a top 10 position is good for them too. We have a few others that can make it there on a really good day. The prize winners are still not realistic now, Pasanen said.
“The best skiers”
The Finnish women’s national team will have a returnee, Jällivaara, at the World Cup this coming weekend, when the 45-year-old Roponen returns to strength.
Konkari made a splash even before Ruka by placing sixth in the Olos International Games and washing both Pärmäkoski and Niskanen.
According to Pasanen, the national team has no reason to be ashamed if Roponen is the best Finn in the 10 km split start on Saturday.
– It must be remembered that Riitta-Liisa has not come to the Games without any training, but has continued to train actively. He showed in Olos that the speed is still enough.
Roponen’s spouse, coach Toni Roponen estimated to Urheilu that his wife trained for about 850 hours during the year, which is a really tough international level.
– The results tell, and the best ski. Of course, it depends a little on which places we are talking about. They tell the level. Now let’s see which Swedes will make it to the finish line, Pasanen said and referred to the several illnesses and absences in the Swedish team.
Giant surprises possible later
The current World Cup system favors a lot of competitors. Constant traveling and competing exposes you to illnesses.
Norway, who won the overall World Cup competition last season Tiril Udnes Weng didn’t make it to Ruka and still can’t ski in Jällivaara either. Missing four individual races (3 in Ruka and 1 in Jällivaara) almost certainly means that Weng will not be able to repeat his overall victory.
Pasanen stated that, in addition to the risk of getting sick, the results lists will certainly live when we get into more humid conditions, especially in the spring. At that time, the absence of fluorine creams that repel water and dirt brings a new, significant variable to cross-country skiing. The variable is as historic to the sport as the introduction of fiberglass and later fluoride creams to the market.
– Everyone has to adapt to the fact that during the season we may see some pretty exciting results lists. When you get the first decent vesikeli, a really good rotten one, then the results can be interesting, when the differences in the equipment are so wild.
– I think that in the traditional situation the so-called more normal, because grip lubrication is so crucial, Pasanen said.
The exception factors therefore make it possible for individual top results to be more likely than before. They still do not change the overall picture of Finns’ problems with free skiing.
Pasanen underlined that he hoped that the young and future generations of skiers in Finland would invest more in both types of skiing than before. The skiing styles were already separated from each other for the season 1985–1986, and for the first time in the world championships, one or the other was skied at the same time at the World Championships in Oberstdorf in 1987. So there has been almost 40 years of learning time.
– It is a fact that free has been a more difficult technique for us throughout its existence. Attempts have been made to influence it, and there have been many free projects. But our athletes often want to optimize the traditional way of skiing, because they do better with it, Pasanen said.
Saturday 2.12.
Sunday 3.12.