Jasmi Joensuu’s alarming situation: “The fire was a fatality”

The Finnish women’s relay skiing was applauded on Sunday in Jällivaara already after the opening leg, when Jasmi Joensuu the USA did not stay in the 4×7.5 kilometer race Jessie Diggins and Norway by Heidi Weng on.

– Diggins hit the ground running and made the group completely new. Then Jasmi suffered a fatality, which she was able to patch up at the end, analyzes Iltalehti’s skiing expert Reijo Jylhä.

– Jasmi had asked for more grip on her skis before the competition. When Diggins skied so hard, Jasmi had to work especially hard on the easy sections, the expert adds.

Joensuu succeeded in the traditional sprint in his parade event last Friday at the Ruka World Cup and advanced to the final of the top six, but the three starts that followed have been alarming.

– The standard free ride on Saturday in slow weather in Jällivaara was the worst ride for Jasmi, because it is poison for Jasmi’s muscles, says Jylhä.

Sixteenth in Ruka’s traditional top ten (1.04.1 from the top), 32nd (+2.24.0) in Jällivaara’s free top ten and seventh (+39.2) in Jällivaara’s relay.

The expert estimates that the slow freezing temperatures have eaten up the possibilities of the high-performance A national team skier considerably.

– He is able to produce an exceptional amount of lactic acid, but when he goes overboard, so to speak, there is no going back. If there are too many races with high lactic acid, the speed will decrease as the anaerobic threshold decreases.

With loans

Finland’s second relay skier Rebecca Immonen got into the race with an emergency alert when Krista Pärmäkoski withdrew on Sunday morning due to illness.

A special detail was that Immos had no traditional skis with him in Sweden. He had to compete in the second traditional leg of the relay using Joensuu equipment.

– Apparently, he doesn’t have skis in the Finnish truck, and he shouldn’t have skied in the relay, at least in the traditional way.

Immonen does not belong to the A national team, so he does not have extensive ski equipment in the Finnish service truck. In Jällivaara, the woman who prefers to scoot around in the open didn’t like traditional skis. According to the competition rules, a sick athlete can be replaced by another, but the skiing order cannot be changed. That’s why Immonen had to deal with the traditional part.

– There is no reason to point at Rebecca. Finland no longer had an expectation of success when Krista was not involved, sums up Jylhä.

After Immonen’s share, Finland was 2.20 behind the top.

Destruction

Finland was 8/9 in the women’s relay. Only Kazakhstan remained behind.

In addition to Pärmäkoski, skiers who traveled to Jällivaara jumped out of the message Kerttu Niskanen.

On the other side of the regular faces of the message, a week ago, someone got sick with corona Johanna Matintalo. The experienced Anne Kyllönen was also absent from the trip to Sweden.

– The tip of Finland is very narrow. And it can be seen especially now, when the best are not able to ski at world-class speed, says Jylhä.

Iltalehti analyzed a couple of weeks ago that the success of Finnish women’s skiing is about to be destroyed after Pärmäkoski and Niskanen put their skis in the bag.

– For example, Rebekka Immonen is currently skiing harder than ever before, but it’s not enough. It’s worrying. Finland does not have two women’s team skiers who could even get a tolerable international ranking.

There is hope in men

On Saturday in Jällivaara, the topic of discussion was Finland’s equipment problems.

Jylhä says that the challenges in Sunday’s relay were visually mostly related to when some athletes took extra grip cream on their traditional skis.

– The situation in Finland already during my time as head coach was a bit of a challenge: you always had to be a winning ski if you wanted to succeed. If the ski was not among the three in the country comparison, the others were left out, says the Rovaniemi resident who has been at the helm of the A national team for nine years.

– Correspondingly, Norway is able to succeed with a slightly worse instrument. For example, in Sunday’s message Simen Krüger the ski was not very good and Swedish Leo Johansson caught up, but still Krüger came to change at the front after the third leg, Jylhä adds.

In the men’s relay, Finland’s B national team-like quartet Lauri Lepistö, Markus Vuorela, Remi Lindholm and Miro Karpanen struggled effectively and was sixth. 12 teams participated in the competition.

In men’s skiing in Finland, behind the most famous athletes, buns are better in the oven than in women.

Norway won the men’s relay in Jällivaara before Sweden and Germany.

– Vuorela and Lindholm skied well in the last kilometers without counting. They both kind of froze at the end. If Lindholm had stayed with Germany, Karppanen could have fought for a podium place.