#5 – Finland: Onwards and Upwards

Nations Cup: 4210pts (5^th)

Men: 1249 (10^th)

Women: 2961 (4^th)

With the retirement of Muranen, Finland lost another integral part of their team for the second year in a row (Kuitunen retired in 2009-2010); however, the break through of Lahteenmaki and Niskanen minimize the void left behind by the 2001 World Sprint Champion. On the men’s side, both Heikkinen and Jauhojaervi rebounded from poor 2009-2010 campaigns to have career years.

MEN’S SPRINT

The men’s sprint team is one of those squads that has a ton of good talent, but hasn’t necessarily reached their potential quite yet. Strandvall (16^th ranked), Jylhae (22^nd), Jauhojaervi (32^nd) and Paakkonen (59^th) all earned at least one top 10 finish last season while Nousiainen (52^nd), Heikkinen (54^th), Pentsinen (64^th), Vaeaenaenen (75^th) all had at least one top 20 finish. Finland will be looking for more consistent top 12 results from the Strandvall and Jylhae as they are the two top sprint specialists for the nation. Jauhojaervi is a classic specialist and expect him to have a few top 10 placings in the classic sprint this year; last year he failed to qualify top 30 in any freestyle sprints.

WOMEN’S SPRINT

Muranen (17^th ranked) left the sport while she was still on top. She won the Finnish sprint title as well as earning two top 10 finishes. The 2001 World sprint champion was the best Finnish sprinter on the circuit last year and has left some big shoes to fill. Last year, Saarinen (19^th) had a sub-par sprint season for her standards and failed to win a medal and only made the finals once. After finishing 4^th in the Sprint Cup a year prior, I expect that she’ll be back near the top this season and add a few more sprint medals to her already large collection.

Anne Kylloenen (25^th) was an athlete that went about business in a very quiet manner. In fact, I don’t even remember her from last season, but she impressively qualified for nine races. She will be looking to continue to improve this year and make it to more semi-finals than last year (she failed to earn a single semi-final birth last season).

Sarasoja (27^th), Lahteenmaki (29^th),Niskanen (40^th), Peraelae (45^th), Roponen (50^th) also earned sprint points last season despite being revered as distance skiers.

MEN’S DISTANCE

After a nightmarish end to the 2009-2010 season and start of the 2010-2011 campaign, it looked like we would never see the form Heikkinen (17^th ranked) showed when he edged out Freeman to earn 3^rd place in the 15km classic at the World Champs in Liberec. However, the diminutive Finn amazed the ski world and improved on his 3^rd place as he won the 15km at Holmenkollen last March. This year, Heikkinen will be looking to be a serious contender for the Tour de Ski by taking a similar path as Bauer as his sprinting chops are pretty poor.

Sami Jauhojaervi (26^th) had a very tumultuous season last year. He either skied very well, or placed outside the top 40. Out of the five races he earned World Cup points, he finished inside the top 16 in all of them (5^th, 6^th, 9^th, 16^th and 12^th). If he can find some more consistency this year, he should climb the distance and overall ranking considerably.

Ville Nousianen (41^st) is a decent skier, but not on the same level as his aforementioned teammates. His seasonal best last year was an 8^th in Oberhof. There is also Juha Lallukka who made the world take note with his performance in the 4x10km as he pulled Finland back into the medals during the third leg at the World Champs and again a couple of days later with his 8^th place in the frantic 50km mass-start. Lallukka is a strict freestyle specialist so he will be limited in the amount of World Cup starts he gets this season.

WOMEN’S DISTANCE

Even with the retirement of Kuitunen, the Finnish women still have enough talent to throw together a very good relay team. With Saarinen (7^th distance ranking), Roponen (9^th), Lahteenmaki (12^th) and Sarasoja (24^th), the Finnish women have a decently strong relay team. Include Kerttu Niskanen who just will be entering her full season on the World Cup and the women are looking pretty good for the upcoming season. With the retirement of Muranen, I wouldn’t be surprised if Niskanen took her lead-off spot, or at least leap frogs Sarasoja as the final member of that foursome.

I also really want to highlight Lahteenmaki as she’s going to be one of the future superstars of the sport. At the age of 21-years old, she finished 5^th in the 10km classic in Oslo as well as earning her first World Cup podium during the Tour de Ski (which she ultimately finished an impressive 8^th) during the second stage. She also anchored Finland to a bronze in the 4x5km relay. Going into her second full year on the circuit, expect her to be very familiar name by the end of the season if she isn’t already.

The Future of Finnish Skiing

THE FUTURE

The future for Finland is the present. With Lahteenmaki already making a name for herself and Niskanen winning the U23 sprint, the women look to be set for more success in the coming years. At the age of 19-years old, Maria Grundvall appears to be turning into a decent sprint specialist with a 4^th place at World Juniors though she is a couple of years away from World Cup readiness.

On the men’s side, it’s Perttu Hyvarinen who was one of the standouts at World Juniors this year collecting two bronze medals in individual events and helped the Finnish relay team to a 3^rd place as well.

THE VERDICT

It seems that the rebuilding years for Finland are now over. They have talent across the board for both the men and the women and with top prospects coming through the junior ranks, it’s promising times for Finland. Expect Heikkinen and Jauhojaervi to build on last year’s successes while Saarinen and Lahteenmaki will head one of the strongest Finnish women’s sides in many years.

Marit Remains Perfect, But Barely

It was a race for Bjørgen to lose. She was the overwhelming favourite for the bookies and the home fans, she already had two gold medal to her name and the home fans expect to have a third by the end of the day. After all was done and dusted, the Norwegian did remain perfect, but it was a lot more uncomfortable than many thought it would be.

THE RACE

Since it was an individual start, we saw the slower skiers lead out the race and there was nothing to talking about for the first 35 skiers. The one bright spot that stood out to me was Sadie Bjornsen from USA who held the fastest time through 2.2km before the meat of the race began coming through. Her time was surpassed by Sweden’s Sara Lindborg. After that the times fell dramatically as it was Pirjo Muranen who came through the time check only seven bibs later and was a whole 26 seconds faster than the Swede. This was the time that all the favourites would be measured on as they came to the time check.

Eventually, the attention was directed to the starting gate as all the favourites began to pour out onto the course. As the favourites were on the course it became very apparent that the Finn’s had extraordinary skis on the day as after 59 skiers through the first time check, Muranen, Lahteenmaki and Niskanen held the three fastest times. However, it was Haag who came through next to take three seconds out of Muranen’s lead time to take the lead, but only two bibs later it was another Finn in the shape of Saarinen to take another four seconds out of the Swede to take the lead.

Then the two big guns came. First Bjørgen came through the 2.2km check and took six seconds out of Saarinen, and then surprisingly Kowalczyk came through a whole 10 seconds fastest than the Norwegian to take the early lead in the race. It was a blistering fast pace that Kowalczyk was setting as the top six were already separated by 20 seconds after only seven minutes of racing.

From then on the TV coverage started to bounce all over the track. At the finish we have Bjornsen leading before Lindborg took over while at the 7.0km mark we had the Finn’s dominating while the Norwegian (Skofterud and Størmer-Steria) were 26 seconds down on the lead, but still siting in 3rd and 4th respectively.

At the finish it was Muranen who took out a massive 1:46 out of Lindborg’s time to take over the leaders chair.

Back out at the 7.0km mark, everyone was loosing time on the Finn’s; Haag who sat three seconds ahead of them at 2.2km, was now in a 38 second deficit behind the current leader in Lahteenmaki. Just as Haag went through the check-point, it was Saarinen who looked destined for the podium today as she came through 9 seconds ahead of Lahteenmaki at 7km for the lead. However, it wasn’t long before Bjørgen came through and took 10 seconds out of the Finn, but Kowalczyk in turn took 8 seconds out of the Norwegian.

As more athletes came to the finish, it was becoming apparent what a good run Muranen had as she was a full 30 seconds ahead the like of Størmer-Steira, Skofterud and 50 seconds ahead of Majdic. However, Muranen was overtaken by her teammate Lahteenmaki then Saarinen as Saarinen held a short-lived 14 second lead over the others as both Bjørgen and Kowalczyk came into the finish.

The crowd was buzzing as Longa and Bjørgen came into the home stretch and Bjørgen took 9 seconds out of Saarinen. Then, as Bjørgen laid in a heap of exhaustion and looking at the clock, the rest of Norway held their collective breath as Kowalczyk desperately double-poled her way to the finish. With only 20 meters to the finish, the grandstand erupted as Kowalczyk slipped into second place as Bjørgen remained perfect and collected her third gold of the 2011 World Championships.

RESULTS
1. Marit Bjørgen
2. Justyna Kowalczyk
3. Aino Kaisa Saarinen

What a finish to a race! With the two favourites starting 30 seconds apart, it meant that everyone would be keeping a keen eye on the splits just as much as they would be watching the actual race itself. Kowalczyk crumples into a heat, half from exhaustion, half from sadness from not winning the race. I’m not the biggest Kowalczyk fan around, but it was hard not to feel sorry for her as she sat in tears at the finish line realizing that with 3km left, it was her race to lose, and she lost it.

Also, I was super pumped to see the Finns and in particular Saarinen, one of my favourite female skiers have a great day. They’ve had a tumultuous season so far with good results few and far between, but it one team put it together today, it was them. They had four of their athletes in the top eight; Saarinen (3rd), Lahteenmaki (5th), Muranen (6th), Niskanen (8th) and Roponen (17th). Particularly with Lahteenmaki, we have to remember she’s only 20 years-old. To finish 5th, just shows her potential, definitely one to watch for the future.

Compare Finland’s positions with those of Norway’s who had Bjørgen (1st), Johaug (4th), Skofterud (9th) and Størmer-Steira (10th). Just makes the team relay that more interesting in four days time.

As for North America, no real bright spots today. The top athletes were American with Brooks (27th), Bjornsen (29th), and Randall (32nd). For Canada, Gaiazova led the way in 37th with Jones (39th), Crawford (52nd) and Gosling (56th) also hitting the start line.

Today I watched the race on NRK (Norway’s equivalent of CBC) and I must tip my hat to them, their coverage is amazing. Usually, if you don’t have a Nowegian IP address, you are blacked out from their NRK1 and NRK2 streaming channels, but if you head over to http://nrk.no/skivm this week, anyone can watch any of the World Championship races on demand streaming with quality up to 720p! (if you internet is fast enough, if not it will dumb down the quality for smooth playback) A special thanks to @ahtramos for the heads up.

Their coverage has been nothing less than amazing and rightly so. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a nation such as Norway. When every Norwegian started today’s race, they had a graphic that came up noting something impressive about the athlete; such as, Johaug having a PB in the 3000m on the track of 9:32 or Bjørgen having six gold, two silver and three bronze at World Championships. They even picked up on Størmer-Steira’s inability to hit the podium as they put a graphic up that mentioned she has a total of six 4th places at World Championships and Olympics in her career. For me, just little things like that make watching the races even more enjoyable to watch.

That’s it for today, tomorrow is the highly anticipated men’s 15km classic.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Business as Usual: Marit Continues to Roll

Life, it’s a funny thing isn’t it? Just after a month of deciding to pack it in, I’ve opted to pull a Brett Favre/Peter Forsberg and come back for the remainder of the season. One commenter on Twitter mentioned I might not be gone for long, and he was right.

It might be slightly hypocritical coming back for the season, but that doesn’t bother me. Why am I back? Numerous reasons, but I thought since I’m actually watching the races again, I might as well give some commentary and analysis too right? Anyway, let’s get to the business end of things…

WOMEN’S 15km PURSUIT

After the first day of the Championships and Marit Bjørgen winning Norway’s 100th World Championship medal of all time, she was by far and away the favourite to win the countries 101st World Championship medal only two days later. The book makers had her as the overwhelming favourite at 1.25 while Kowalczyk and Kalla were 5.00 and 17.00 for the win respectively.

The weather for today’s race was a ski jumpers and spectators dream with visibility of about 50 meters. Add temperatures around -3°C and humidity of 96% made it very interesting for all those in charge of the ski preparations.

While the book-makers had Bjørgen as the one to come across the finish line first, it was Kowalczyk who was the defending World Champion from Liberec in 2009 and we all know she would not give in easily and fight tooth and nail to retain her title.

THE RACE

The start of the race was predictable as Bjørgen and Kowalczyk pushed the pace early and within three minutes the field was already splintering. The pace that Bjørgen was setting was hurting everyone and by five minutes there was a definitive group of 10 skiers able to stick with the pace.

Surprisingly, Follis, the silver medallist from Thursday was not in that first 10 athletes and was loosing contact quickly as the athletes came through the stadium at the end of the first 2.5km loop. The other skier to note early on was the early season Swedish surprise of Maria Rydqvist who was well within the lead and the top 10.

While there was a front 10, behind there was a chase pack of 20 that formed and was sitting 17 seconds behind the lead.

At the start of the 5km loop, Bjørgen gave way and let Kowalczyk take up the pace-setting. However, Kowalczyk didn’t let up and by 10 minutes, there was a definitive group of seven at the front consisting of Kowalczyk, Johaug, Bjørgen, Kalla, Saarinen, Longa and Haag.

The battle between Bjørgen and Kowalczyk was continuing to hurt everyone and at the 4.7km time check, it was down to four athletes; Bjørgen, Kowalczyk, Johaug and Kalla and the Swede was barely hanging on at this point with her mouth wide open and gasping for oxygen. It was only mere seconds later when Kalla finally gave in and the lead group was down to three.

The lead group was led by Kowalczyk, but the next camera shot just before the 5.5km check-point had Bjørgen ahead of Johaug with Kowalczyk in tow. At the time check, Kalla was down 15 seconds while Saarinen was reeling her in and only four seconds behind the Swede.

Coming into the exchange, it was Bjørgen who had a 10 meter advantage on Kowalczyk who was being tailed by Johaug, but it was enough to make it hard for Kowalczyk and Johaug have visual contact with the leader.

At the halfway point of the race, the switch of the Johaug and Kowalczyk was extremely efficient and they closed the gap on Bjørgen exiting the exchange zone.

Behind the leaders, Saarinen and Kalla came in together and during the exchange, Kalla somehow kicked one of her skate skis into the center of the exchange zone and had to go chase it, but no real damage was done except some addition frustration in the Swede’s mind.

With one kilometer gone in the freestyle leg, the leading three were all together and comfortably skiing the pace.  At the same point, Saarinen and Kalla were skiing together, but since skating is the Swede’s bread and butter, you could see how much more comfortable with the current pace compared to the Finn.

Just after 9.5km, it was time for the athletes to take on a feed and further back, Kalla and Saarinen pulled back a couple of seconds on the leaders.

Coming into the stadium, Bjørgen slowed it down slightly and wanted Kowalczyk to take on some of the grunt work; however, Kowalczyk looked behind her and waved Johaug on forward and the diminutive Norwegian accepted the invitation and injected some speed into the race.

Impressively, Saarinen was sticking with Kalla and they had taken out another four seconds out of the lead, but still sat 32 seconds behind with only 3.75km to go. Fessel, Longa, Størmer-Steira and Rydvist formed a foursome who were trailing Kalla and Saarinen and were 18 seconds behind fourth and fifth place.

While the lead three continued to ski together with less than three kilometers to go, Kalla finally broke Saarinen but had lost two seconds on the leaders.

With 1.8km to go, Bjørgen put in her move and skied passed her teammate and put in an attack. She was able to put in 6-7 meters between her and the other two. Coming up the sprint hill, Kowalczyk was giving everything she had as Bjørgen had a 10 meter gap while Johaug couldn’t keep up with the fight for second place.

Coming into the finishing straight, Bjørgen had a healthy lead and was able to wave and fist pump to the crowd. Kowalczyk had to continue to charge to the line as she had Johaug hot on her heals for second place.

RESULTS
1. Marit Bjørgen
2. Justyna Kowalczyk
3. Therese Johaug

She did it right for the Olympics, and it looks like Bjørgen has got the preparations right for the World Championships on home snow. While Kowalczyk and Johaug gave Bjørgen a run for the money, it was a combination of great tactics and supreme fitness that saw Bjørgen earn her second gold medal from Holmenkollen.

While Bjørgen was amazing again, we have almost been numbed to this amazing show of athleticism on a weekly basis; the days most impressive result was Maria Rydqvist who, before the season wasn’t even on the Swedish National Team. Well today she finished sixth in a photo-finish with Fessel. She was in and around 10th after the exchange and managed to move her way up and ever surpass Saarinen in the closing meters of the race to be the second best Swede on the day. Congrats to her.

On the opposite end, I was fairly disappointed with Follis. I had to pegged for fifth place today, but to be an athlete of her quality and to finish 19th and 2:42 behind, she has to be massively upset with the way the day went.

North America = The Americans had a great day today being led by Liz Stephen in 24th with her teammates Holly Brooks and Jessica Diggins in 25th and 28th respectively. Three American’s in the top 30?! I’m very impressed. The only Canadian to enter today was Brooke Gosling who finished 51st.

Also, anyone notice how Johaug has turned into the “Duracell Rabbit” instead of the “Energizer Bunny” she used to be when she was first coined with the nickname? I’m thinking Duracell wants a cut of the potential advertising.

Talk to you all tomorrow.