Joni Mäki is looking for a new start to his season at the Imatra Championship this weekend. Mäki has not found striking ability in the early season.
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Olympic and World Cup medalist Joni Mäki has not been in his usual mood this season, but the skier’s results have been weak throughout.
Mäki has twice failed to qualify for the World Cup sprint. The season’s best from the World Cup is 19th place in the Lillehammer freestyle sprint at the beginning of December.
On normal trips, the result has not been any better.
The 29-year-old Mäki has previously been in the sprint finals several times and once on the podium, in the World Cup in Falun 2022. In his normal pace, Mäki has at least reached the qualifying stage. Now even the qualifiers have produced pain.
– It feels like the level of sprinting has risen behind the middle class and the very sharpest point. You have to be in a really good mood and hit well to be sure to advance, Mäki told Urheilu.
Mäki says that his condition hasn’t felt strange since the Finnish Cup games in the early season. Skiing hard has not been effective.
– When you have had to ski hard alone in the sprint qualifying, it has been a stumbling block. The mood has been quite moderate. In recent seasons, even on a bad day, I’ve made it through qualifying.
Mäki managed to avoid getting sick during the training season, but there were still question marks in the air already at the end of the season.
– Such top condition and energy were not quite at the level of the best years during the training season. Even before the start of the season, I thought about what level I could perform at.
“There have been changes on the way”
The skier, who will turn 30 at the end of January, says that nowadays you have to invest more in speed characteristics.
– Sprinting has usually come quite easily along with other training. Speed has been gained even with relatively little speed training. When you get older, it doesn’t go like that anymore.
Mäki competed in the World Cup last time in Davos, Switzerland, in mid-December and missed the qualification.
Mäki says that he is looking for a new start to his season from Imatra at the weekend’s championships. He was not involved in the Tour de Ski.
– After Davos, things did not go exactly as planned. Now, during the last few weeks, everything has gone well and I have been able to train. I got a little sick when I got home from Switzerland.
Mäki’s main target is the World Championships in Trondheim at the end of February, when it’s the free sprint.
– Approaching the World Championships has been a little different than I had planned. There have been changes on the way, and now we have to try to build up our fitness at the beginning of the year so that the situation looks brighter on the sprint day of the World Championships. To be able to do more than just participate.
In the 2021–2022 season, Mäki was in the lowlands in December and the results fell. However, the Finn managed to get fit for the Beijing Winter Olympics. The result was fourth place in the sprint and silver in the pair sprint.
This is well remembered by the skier.
– The ax has not yet been thrown into the well. There are still opportunities to turn the tide. You have to trust that and I believe in that.
Friday 10.1.
Parisprint
Qualifying at 10 a.m., finals at 2 p.m
Saturday 11.1.
10 km as a traditional split start
Women at 10 a.m., men at 11:30 a.m
Sunday 12.1.
Combined race (10 km traditional, 10 km free)
Women at 10:30, men at 12:00
‘s shipments:
On Friday, the broadcast of the Parisprint finals starts at 1:45 p.m. Saturday’s broadcast starts at 9:58 a.m. and Sunday’s broadcast of the SM skiing starts at 10:15 a.m.