Liberec round-up: Finns collect eight medals, somewhat unevenly

Nordic Combined and ski-jumping representatives draw a complete blank at World Championships

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The FIS Nordic Skiing World Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic came to an end on Sunday. Finland took a very creditable eight medals from the games - three golds and five bronze medals.
      The distribution of the hardware might, however, have been a little more even-handed: the women cross-country skiers supplied five of the eight, with Aino-Kaisa Saarinen starring with one individual gold, two relay golds, and an individual bronze medal.
      The Finnish male skiers could also hold their heads up fairly high with three bronze medals - podium-placings at major championships have been a bit thin on the ground in recent years.
     
On the other hand, the complete absence of any reward for the Nordic Combined or ski-jumping members of the team was not so much a surprise as a disaster, especially given the earlier form displayed by the likes of Anssi Koivuranta or Harri Olli on the FIS World Cup circuit.
     
The men's 4 x 10 km relay on Friday brought Finland's eighth and last medal, as the quartet of Matti Heikkinen, Sami Jauhojärvi, Teemu Kattilakoski, and Ville Nousiainen came home in third behind the Norwegians and the Germans.
      Norway's anchor Petter Northug had enough to see off Axel Teichmann for the gold by a margin of 2.6 seconds, while the Finns were a respectful 40 seconds back in third, though comfortably ahead of the Italians in 4th.
      For all but Kattilakoski, it was a second medal for the Finnish team-members: Matti Heikkinen won an individual bronze in the 15km classical, while Jauhojärvi and Nousiainen placed 3rd in the team sprint event.
     
The solid performance by the men will have come as a huge relief to the Finnish Ski Association, which has had a monkey on its back for a decade and more: the last medals won (and kept...) by male Finnish cross-country skiers at the Olympic or World Championships level came in Ramsau in Austria in 1999, and the taker was Mika Myllylä, one of those disgraced in the blood-doping scandal at the Lahti World Championships of 2001.
     
The last occasion when a Finnish men's relay team got on the podium was at the Winter Olympics in Japan in 1998, and no fewer than three of the four skiers that day were later to get caught in Lahti.
      Now, however, the team can look forward - for the first time in the "post-Lahti era" - to Vancouver and the Olympics next year with a real sense that they could bring something back besides memories and Olympic village souvenirs.
      The men also did creditably enough in Sunday's 50-kilometres marathon, with Kattilakoski (8th) and Juha Lallukka (15th) both in the mix until the final stages.
      Victory went to Petter Northug of Norway, who thus crowned himself the king of the skiing contingent with two individual golds and a relay gold medal.
     
Among the women, the title of "queen of the games" was probably a toss-up between Aino-Kaisa Saarinen (one individual gold, one individual bronze, and two relay golds) and Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk.
      The Pole took Saturday's 30 km freestyle race in fine style ahead of Yevgeniya Medvedeva (Russia) and Valentina Schevchenko (Ukraine). Kowalczyk also won the individual gold in the 7.5km + 7.5km pursuit and was third behind Saarinen in the 10 km classic event.
     
Saarinen herself could be counted a little unlucky in the 30 km.
      She broke a ski-pole while in the leading group roughly 3 kilometres from the end of the race, and though she quickly got a replacement, the extra energy required to catch the leaders meant she had nothing much left in the tank when the medals were decided.
      She finished 7th, just behind Riitta-Liisa Roponen. Roponen's gutsy 6th place marked a fine comeback after her flop in the relay that Finland won on Thursday, and put a smile back on her face.
      Pirjo Muranen also did well to finish 10th.
      Virpi Kuitunen, winner of two earlier relay golds, was totally out of sorts on Saturday and coming down with 'flu. She retired at half-way, by which time she was already hopelessly far behind the serious contenders.
     
This leaves us with the Nordic Combined and the ski-jumpers.
      It is tempting to say "the less said the better", but this would be a gross injustice to Janne Ryynänen, who finished a very decent 4th in the HS134 Nordic Combined event on Saturday.
      Bill Demong of the United States skied through the pack to win from Björn Kircheisen of Germany and the leader after the jumping, Jason Lamy Chappuis of France.
      Anssi Koivuranta, who has dominated the World Cup this season and who was expected to score big at the World Championships, could not add to his two previous 4th place finishes because of symptoms of a case of bronchitis.
     
Koivuranta actually jumped himself into second spot on the big hill, but on doctor's orders he did not line up for the skiing.
      He will be bitterly disappointed with the way things turned out in Liberec, but still has every chance of grabbing the World Cup crown.
      Four events remain, and Koivuranta leads the table by 49 points from Norway's Magnus Moan. Moan also had an under-par World Championships, taking only a bronze from the team event.
     
The Nordic Combined individual gold medals thus all went to the United States, as Demong's compatriot Todd Lodwick took two golds. For Demong, the win in Saturday's competition was a sweet compensation for his personal disaster in the earlier team event.
     
The Finnish ski-jumping team will come home empty-handed and mightily dejected.
      After the individual big hill on Friday (where Matti Hautamäki and Ville Larinto were 11th and 12th respectively, and Harri Olli was 21st) and the team event on Saturday (where Finland finished a humiliating sixth as Austria triumphed) this is the first time since 1999 that no medals whatsoever have come our way from the World Championships.
      The best result was Larinto's 7th on the HS100 metre hill.
     
There had been fears that the retirement at the end of last season of old stalwarts Hannu Manninen (in the Nordic Combined) and Janne Ahonen (in the ski-jumping) would hurt these disciplines, but the World Cup performances so far this season, particularly those by Anssi Koivuranta and to a lesser extent by Olli, Larinto, and Hautamäki, had raised hopes the supply of medals would keep on coming.
      As it was, only the more experienced Matti Hautamäki came anything close to achieving his true form in Saturday's team event when it counted.
     
There were complaints about the capricious wind and the hills in Liberec, but presumably all the other competitors were able to adjust to the conditions.
      Harri Olli in particular went from hero to zero: the 2007 silver medallist could do no better than 13th and 21st in the individual competitions, and his second jump of only 108 metres in the team event ensured that Finland had no hope of catching bronze-medallists Japan, let alone Norway or the winners Austria.
     
Norway emerged on top of the medals table with five golds, four silvers and three bronze medals, while the USA (4-1-1) sprang a surprise to finish second, ahead of the Finns (3-0-5).
      Germany actually got nine medals, but not one was golden: they had eight second-place finishers.
      Conversely, Sweden and Russia both had a thin time of it: two silvers and a bronze apiece.
      The next World Championships will be in two years' time in Oslo, Norway.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish women take third gold from Liberec (27.2.2009)

Links:
  Liberec 2009
  2009 Nordic Skiing World Championships (Wikipedia)
  FIS pages

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