Manninen enjoys double podium weekend in Sapporo; Happonen wins ski-flying event at Planica; Palander faces surgery

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Hannu Manninen, who has dominated this winter's Nordic combined World Cup in exhibition style, took yet another victory plus a silver medal position in Sapporo on the closing day of the season.
      Manninen had already secured his third consecutive World Cup title even before the Torino Olympics.
     
Manninen began his Sunday by winning the skiing part of the mass start event, the ski-jumping section of which had been postponed from Saturday till Sunday because of a high wind.
      In the mass start event's final standings Germany's Björn Kircheisen was second, followed by Austria's Christoph Bieler. Manninen's compatriots Anssi Koivuranta, Jaakko Tallus, and Janne Ryynänen finished 5th, 10th, and 21st respectively.
      At the bottom of the hill Manninen uncharacteristically jumped for joy after witnessing Kircheisen's last effort, which proved inadequate to knock the Finn off the first position.
     
The season's last event, the sprint, was capped by the Frenchman Jason Lamy Chappuis, before Manninen in second. This time Tallus, Ryynänen, and Koivuranta secured 11th, 13th, and 20th positions respectively.
      During the season Manninen won 12 World Cup events, securing a massive 1,500 World Cup points, compared to Norwegian Magnus Moan's 961 points and Kircheisen's 888 points.
      "The season was just unbelievable. Twelve victories in one season can hardly be topped. I hope the next season will be just as good, so that I might cap the World Cup for the fourth consecutive time", Manninen rejoiced. The only blot on the landscape was the Finn's failure once again to collect an individual Olympic medal. He has drawn a similar blank in the World Championships.
     
Finnish ski-jumper Janne Happonen realised a boyhood dream by securing a World Cup event victory at Planica's ski-flying hill.
      The 23-year-old from Kuopio produced jumps of 225.5 and 226.5 metres and finished first, 9.9 points ahead of Austria's Martin Koch. Robert Kranjec of Slovenia came in third.
      For Happonen, who first became known as a child prodigy, maturing to excel in adult events has taken time.
      "I am not sure why. The present success may result from the fact that I have finally learned to stay relaxed throughout the competition."
      Happonen's aim for the next season is to establish himself among the top ten ski-jumpers in the world.
      This year's ski-jumping World Cup, which was concluded yesterday, was remarkably even. Jakub Janda of the Czech Republic finished first ahead of Finland's Janne Ahonen, who had taken the two previous World Cup titles in imperious fashion. Ahonen's 10th place on Sunday was enough to keep him ahead of Andreas Küttel of Switzerland.
      Among this season's 11 World Cup event victors there were three Finns: Ahonen, Happonen, and Matti Hautamäki. The season was nevertheless a slight disappointment. Ahonen shares Hannu Manninen's fate of never having won an Olympic individual medal, and his season faded after the disappointments of Torino. Matti Hautamäki did take an Olympic silver, but his end-of-season form also petered out. Happonen's victory was therefore very welcome.
     
Finland's top two Alpine skiers, Tanja Poutiainen and Kalle Palander , also found themselves on the podium over the weekend, though in arguably very different circumstances.
      Poutiainen stepped up to take third place in the season's closing giant slalom in Åre, Sweden. This equalled her best performance in FIS World Cup competitions this season, and left her feeling on a relatively high note, after what had long looked like being a winter she would rather forget.
      Poutiainen, who won both the slalom and giant slalom World Cup titles last year, was off the pace for most of the winter, and things were really only redeemed by an excellent silver medal at the Olympics and by this strong vein of form towards the end of the campaign. She eventually finished 8th in the GS standings, and was fifth in the slalom World Cup, although her best individual finish there only entitled her to 4th place.
      For Palander, it was a rather different story. He clambered painfully on to the podium to collect his medal for coming second in the year's slalom World Cup, having left a pair of crutches behind a few seconds earlier.
      The crutches were necessary because he had crashed out in the last giant slalom of the season and damaged his knee ligaments. The injury meant that he could not challenge Giorgio Rocca in the final slalom on Saturday. Rocca held a 52-point lead going into the race, and as luck would have it, the Italian also failed to finish the course, leaving Palander to wonder about some "what ifs".
      For now, however, he will not need to worry about skiing at all, since his mind will be occupied with getting back to fitness for next year. If the anterior cruciate ligament injury is only a minor tear, it will still require surgery, and if Monday's MRI scans show a complete break, the Finn will be facing an ACL reconstruction job. In both cases, the layoff will be a lengthy one. He managed to remain sanguine about the injury, pointing out that he has never had to go under the knife in his career so far, unlike many of his colleagues on the circuit.
      Like Poutiainen, Palander did some of his best work towards the end of the season, but a simple mistake of straddling a gate cost him an almost certain silver medal in Torino. Palander is no stranger to World Cup honours. He won the slalom title in 2003 and was runner-up the following year. He also has a World Championships gold medal from 1999.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Winter Sports Round-up: Hautamäki and Manninen score double victories (30.1.2006)
  Manninen victory show continues at Harrachov (23.1.2006)
  Weekend Sports Round-Up: Ahonen makes ski-jumping history (9.1.2006)

Links:
  FIS-Ski

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