A humiliating rant from Joni Mäki

Joni Mäelle had an incredible laugh on Saturday in the free sprint of the Canmore World Cup in the final stretch, when he threw himself from the lead to the yard.

– Quite a tactical blunder. I should have secured my own place in order to advance from the quarter-finals. Clearly, the other side was not checked and it was passed from there, says Iltalehti’s skiing expert Reijo Jylhä.

Mäki, who skied 3/5 in the semifinals, switched twenty meters before the finish from the wassberg technique to the mogren technique. Wassberg is a faster way to progress. With this, the Finn took third from the top, after Sweden Edvin Anger and Norway Erik Valnes swept past. Mäki was 13 hundredths behind the Swede and eight behind the Norwegian, and did not make it to the next round.

– I thought that I would take second place in the quarterfinals and get to the second semifinal, from which it will be a little easier to go to the final. Then there was such a small childhood. I have to keep my eyes open until the end, Mäki paid via Viaplay.

– It was a good ski and a good mood. It’s really sad. These places don’t come around too many times, he added.

A harsh sentence

So Mäki let Anger pass by to get from the second place in his quarter-final to the semi-final 2/2. It’s usually a slightly easier path to the final, as the men competing to win the final prefer the semi-final 1/2 due to the longer recovery time.

What Mäki didn’t realize in the quarterfinals was that Valnes would also pass.

– The speed of the final straight was so fast that he couldn’t look both ways. You should take a seat on the edge of the finish line so that you can see all the opponents, Jylhä says.

Valnes liked Mäki’s egging, because without it he would have been eliminated from the continuation. In the end, the leader of the Sprint Cup was second in the race.

Anger, who finished third, was another backdoor hero on Saturday. He was third in the 1/2 semi-final and would have been eliminated from the final, but won the free sprint twice this season Lucas Chanavat was rejected. The French was considered to have wedged Sweden by Johan Häggström inside out.

– It was an undone place for Chanavati. The rules have been tightened. In similar situations, I would not have been rejected before.

Weird track

Lauri Vuorinen was fourth in qualifying on Saturday, but he qualified for Mäki and Niilo Moilanen see you in the quarterfinals.

– Joni Mäki is the only Finn with a winning final score. All the other Finns lost on Saturday due to the lack of maximum speed, says Jylhä.

In practice, every set was decided only in a close fight at the end. Several races were leisurely skied, when no one wanted to start the descent leading to the final straight from the bow.

– It’s a challenging track. It really makes a difference when you’re on the edge of the last descent and come out of there quickly ahead of the other person. They thrived with space and produced the strongest maximum speed.

Joensuu lunch eaten

In the women’s free sprint as well Jasmi Joensuu that Jasmin Kähärä fell into tactical blunders in the quarterfinals. Joensuu braked too much before the last downhill and Kähärä started the descent first.

– In that type of scoring, Joensuu doesn’t have enough bangs. It’s purely a question of technical characteristics. When you have that type of finish, you have to be able to bring the ski directly into the slide and lighten the effort. If the ski goes sideways at all, it’s just not enough when you lose with every slide, Jylhä analysed.

– Kähärä clearly has better conditions to succeed in such a place. By skiing, they got ahead of him at the finish line, and they didn’t benefit from Kähärä’s pee, the expert continues.

Kristine Skistad won the women’s competition. First place was his second of the season in free sprints.

– Skistad completely dominated the whole day. He almost braked. The track was as if it was made for the Norwegian, when he was able to use his strong final drive. You could say that Skistad was able to do what Joni Mäki failed to do.

Five free sprints have been skied in the World Cup this season. In addition to two wins, the tall Norwegian has second and third places.

– There have been problems in those games, when the Swedes have skied from under his feet. Skistad’s weakness is durability. When we go fast for a long time, he doesn’t lose the same tension as on Saturday in Canmore.