Aino-Kaisa Saarinen’s pre-season training has gone well, without last year’s health concerns

Rest-day at high-altitude camp reminded the World Champion of prank played five years ago

Aino-Kaisa Saarinen

print this

By Jussi-Pekka Reponen in Val Senales, Italy
     
      The confession came quite out of the blue and with no prompting.
      With a bubbly laugh, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen revealed what kind of extra-mural activities her rest-days included the last time she was on a glacier training camp with the Finnish national cross-country skiing team here in Val Senales (Schnalstal in German) in Italy's Südtirol region.
      “We pinched some apples from an orchard. It was one of those absolutely brilliant ideas one shouldn't ever go through with. And the apples weren’t even that good! As there is a huge number of apple trees near here, we decided to pay a visit”, Saarinen told Helsingin Sanomat in the team’s hotel, up at an altitude of 2,000 metres above sea level.
      “Perhaps the statute of limitations has kicked in and I will not get convicted for that crime anymore.”
     
Wednesday of last week was Saarinen’s only rest-day during the two-week camp.
      This time around Saarinen’s rest-day programme did not include any mischief, however.
      Instead the day was spent reading, writing postcards, getting some fresh air, and performing some light stretching exercises.
      To mark Saarinen’s day of rest, the valley even received some fresh snow.
     
During her previous stay here, at the beginning of the winter of the Torino Winter Olympics, Saarinen was on the brink of entering the world’s cross-country skiing elite.
      Now, at the age of 31, she is one of the top names in women’s skiing, a World Champion, an Olympic medallist, and Finland’s number one skier.
     
Saarinen’s summer season has gone well, a good deal better than a year ago.
      In 2009 a springtime infection caused by the insidious mycoplasma bacteria slowed down her start of the training season and was perhaps partly to blame for the fact that the Olympic winter - despite the two Olympic bronze medals she collected from Vancouver - did not turn out to be quite as successful as a whole as the winter before had been.
      In 2008-2009 she had finished 3rd overall in the World Cup and also took four medals from the World Championships in Liberec.
      Even this spring Saarinen was diagnosed with a mycoplasma infection, but this time around it was taken care of quickly.
      Fortunately she has been spared from further health issues.
     
"I feel much fresher than a year ago. Somehow I feel stronger - both mentally and physically.”
      Since the last season, there have been significant changes to Saarinen’s coaching and ski maintenance regimes.
      “Apart from Tom, all the other men will be replaced”, Saarinen blurted out firmly at last spring’s Finnish Championships.
      By“Tom” she referred to her fiancé Tom Gustafsson.
      Saarinen’s long-time personal coach Jarmo Riski quit of his own initiative, and the famous and colourful ski maintenance personality Reino Holck began his well-earned retirement.
     
As far as her coaching goes, Saarinen currently receives assistance from the former national team head coach Reijo Jylhä.
      Some additional help comes from Eero Hietanen, who for the past few years has acted as the assistant coach of the national team.
      Saarinen admitted that the issues related to coaching are now more challenging than before.
      She had looked around for a new personal coach during the spring, and the initial plan was that the position would be filled by the national team's new Swedish assistant coach Niclas Grön.
      Later in the summer she announced that Grön was no longer in the frame. Apparently there had been no drama or arguments involved, but rather a matter of small things related to the training programme she had been given, and to the changes required to bring the Swedish ideas into line with Finnish systems and the Finnish topography.
      In the end she decided she would rather go it alone, and she seems comfortable with the decision.
      “After the initial shock things have gone well.”
     
Saarinen’s new ski maintenance guy is Mika Venäläinen, who has previously worked for a long time with the national team’s waxing squad.
      And even Jarmo Riski and Reino Holck have not totally disappeared from the picture.
      ”Jarmo said that I could call him, and I have. Even before coming here I called him and asked for advice as this place is quite unique. Besides, when I was here five years ago I was at such a different level as a skier that my training diary from those days simply couldn't be applied.”
      Holck, in turn, will once again look after Saarinen’s skis as a one-off deal when she begins her November training camp in Holck’s home terrain of Muonio in Finnish Lapland.
     
Aino-Kaisa Saarinen will be taking part in the FIS World Cup events this winter, with the first races being in Gällivare in Sweden on November 20th and 21st.
      The main event of the season will, however, be the 2011 Nordic Skiing World Championships next February at Holmenkollen in Norway.
      Saarinen has a bunch of titles to defend from Liberec in 2009: she won the individual gold medal in the women's 10km classical, and along with the now-retired Virpi Kuitunen she took gold in the team sprint.
      She was also the anchor for the winning Finnish quartet in the 4 x 5 km relay and took an individual bronze medal in the 7.5km +7.5km double pursuit.
     
With these credentials, which had also won her a landslide victory in the Finnish Sports Personality of the Year awards for 2009, Saarinen was really expected to sweep the board in Vancouver, where she planned to take part in six events.
      It turned out not to be quite that straightforward, but now there is a new season in prospect and new races to be won.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 21.10.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Aino-Kaisa Saarinen cleans up at Sports Gala (12.1.2010)
  Six-medal dream: cross-country skier Aino-Kaisa Saarinen plans to take on all six distances in the Vancouver Olympics (17.11.2009)
  Aino-Kaisa Saarinen enjoys a perfect day (20.2.2009)

See also:
  Saarinen´s skis lack speed in women´s sprint event (18.2.2010)
  Finns fall short in medals department, but there were Olympic highlights after all (1.3.2010)

Links:
  Aino-Kaisa Saarinen (Wikipedia)
  FIS Ski: Aino-Kaisa Saarinen

JUSSI-PEKKA REPONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jussi-pekka.reponen@hs.fi