IL tested the special training of star skiers – the end result was ugly

– Roller skiing on a mat is not easy for a fitness person, he answers Cross mat Hakola to the question of what it’s like to train like the stars.

Lapland’s sports college in Rovaniemi has a roller skiing mat simulating Planica’s World Cup tracks. Top skiers use the device in their training.

– Gets you with the course, the action in a competition situation and how you can and should ski at high speeds, lists the testing manager Riikka Kivistö benefits from the simulator.

Iltalehti’s skiing expert working at the college Reijo Jylhä has enticed me to test the device.

– You are such an enthusiastic skier, he announces.

For the last four seasons, there are more than 10,000 skiing kilometers on snow in total, so one roller mat test can’t be too difficult.

The hall is full

– Take it easy at lighter speeds. If you panic, put your skis straight and squat down, and the emergency switch will stop the carpet from rolling, Kivistö advises.

My carelessness starts to turn into deep suspicion, when Jylhä, the sports college’s head of skiing, rushes into the testing room Janne Hyyppäict designer Pietu KorhonenCEO Mika Kulmala and training center manager Eero Hietanen.

– There are more people here than in Finnish ski competitions, Hietanen sighs.

I have used the term “clown skiing competition” in my stories, when athletes from Kenya, Mongolia and Venezuela have gone crazy in the qualifying event for the World Championships.

Now I’m the chubby main character that the crowd has come to laugh at.

Excursion

Hakola’s assessment is top notch.

Roller skiing on carpet is a completely different sport than cross-country skiing on snow.

My left leg moves as if I’m in a firm grip, even though the last time I skied wet was in early November.

I kept drifting to the left edge of the ski, as seen from myself, until finally I tripped upside down. The cord from my safety harness tightens and the carpet stops rolling.

– Are there monos available? You would get better support with them, Kulmala exclaims.

It’s the man’s fault, not the tools.

Boiling Reijo

After a quarter of a turn, I catch enough of the hump plot that I stay in a straight thrust in the middle of the mat.

I have been working with Jylhä for a year and a half. During the man’s head coaching season, I sometimes wrote about him overly critically. He has been calm in all situations.

Now it’s completely different. The man shouts instructions and claps his hands.

– The buttock is very loose and the thrust is far too long, Jylhä says.

The straight push is tolerable, but the shift skiing is a lot of slogging and tumbling. When the sliding effect is completely absent, there is no credit, especially for your weaker left leg.

– Even small children are constantly learning. So do you, Jylhä states.

The warm-ups are heated.

Like a console game

The sprint track of the World Championships in Planica rotates on the screen. The view is as great as the best console games.

The simulator moves at a men’s race pace: a course of a good one and a half kilometers is covered in three minutes.

Fortunately, I’m not on the bench yet.

– Throughout the fall, the athletes have done a lot of training with Planica’s profiles. You get angles and work pieces that correspond to the demands of the games. We get to compare heart rates and acids with certain speeds and angles, says Hyyppä, who works as the simulator’s “machine master”.

I ask him to roll the carpet as slowly as possible before we start.

Stiff jerk

I’m like Uuno Turhapuro as a swimmer: a stiff jerk with a straight body.

But.

I perform the track effectively. At times it feels like there could be more speed on the mat.

– At the end it already looked like roller skiing when you put in a little effort, Jylhä says.

– You did well. It’s not easy that carpet skiing, says Kulmala.

For a moment I get excited about the praise, until Hyyppä tells me my remaining time: 7.12.

That’s how it goes these days, that even the most miserable guys are praised so that they don’t feel bad.