The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics start this week.
Rene Rinnekangas has already been able to test the Olympic rings in Livigno, Italy. EPA / AOP
During the Olympic Games, a big focus has been on whether all performance spots will be completed on time. My excitement has focused, among other things, on the main stage of the men’s and women’s ice hockey tournament in Milan, which was still in a bad stage a month before the start of the games.
The news agency Reuters published a video right before the Olympics about how a lot of preparatory work was still being done at the alpine skiing resort of the Games in Cortina.
If you don’t see the update below, you can find it too from here.
Some of the Finnish athletes have already gone on the Olympic journey. Snowboarder Rene Rinnekangas arrived on the competition stage of his sport in Livigno on Sunday.
– The jumper felt good. It was quite calm, and it wasn’t pulled over. After a couple of jumps, I already felt like I could pull tricks quite well. It was a very positive experience when I got to test the jumper, Rinnekangas describes the conditions to Iltalehti.
Olympic freestyle skiing and snowboarding are contested on the slopes of Livigno. Picture from December. PDO
Rinnekangas participates in big air and slopestyle at the Olympics. He is on fire for the first time even before the official opening of the Games on Thursday, when the Big Air qualifier is on the program.
– We have clear plans in mind regarding what [temppuja] Rene goes to do it. We are waiting for the Games with a calm mind, the head coach of the Finnish national snowboard team Saku Tiilikainen stated.
Rinnekangas and Tiilikainen have not come across any oddities at or outside the competition venues.
– Everything has gone down to the last minute. The food is good and the people are nice. We haven’t been able to test the slopestyle places yet, but everything has worked well in terms of big Air. The arrangements have gone perfectly well. At least I don’t have anything to complain about, Rinnekangas declares.
The men’s big air qualifying starts on Thursday at 20:30 Finnish time. There are 30 calculators, of which 12 reach the finals.
Each participating competitor draws three jumps, of which the results of the best two will stand.
This is what Livigno’s jump site looked like during the construction phase at the end of December. PDO
