Tanja Poutiainen wins a third crystal globe

Victory in the giant slalom World Cup decided in final competition in Åre

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Tanja Poutiainen is one cool customer under pressure. This was plain to see in the final event of the FIS World Cup season, held in Åre, Sweden, after which the 28-year-old from Rovaniemi got to lift the giant slalom crystal globe to the strains of the Finnish national anthem.
      In a repeat performance of her first giant slalom World Cup victory in 2004/2005, when she overtook Sweden’s Anja Pärson in the final event, Poutianen did enough in the last race of the season to lift herself seven points clear (508-501) of the long-time leader in the rankings Kathrin Zettel of Austria.
      Poutiainen finished second on Saturday behind runaway winner Tina Maze of Slovenia, while Zettel could do no better than 8^th after a dismal first run that left her down in 11th place. Maze’s win was enough to elevate her to third in the giant slalom table for the season.
     
In one sense at least, the results in the last event reflected the season as a whole. Zettel actually won four of the eight races on the World Cup giant slalom calendar, but she lost out to Poutiainen in consistency: the Finnish skier took points from her every race, and was on the podium no fewer than five times, and was fourth once. By contrast she only won one competition - in La Molina in December. Zettel, on the other hand, had a complete blank in La Molina, and failed to finish in the top four places except on those occasions when she actually won a giant slalom event.
     
The World Cup title crowns what has been another excellent season for Finland’s top female Alpine skier.
      She took two bronze medals at the recent World Championships in Val d’Isere, and also finished 4^th in the slalom World Cup, and fifth in the overall World Cup standings - a very creditable performance for someone who does not take part in the speed events at all.
      Lindsey Vonn of the United States deservedly took the overall title by a wide margin, ahead of Maria Riesch of Germany, the slalom winner. Vonn also secured globes for the downhill and super-G.
      In the 2004/2005 season, Poutiainen took both the giant slalom and slalom World Cup titles, plus two silvers at the FIS World Championships in Santa Caterina, and she then collected a silver medal in the giant slalom at the 2006 Olympics in Torino.
     
The latest World Cup win and Tanja’s strong showing throughout the season was naturally a cause of great delight among the Finnish Alpine team, although it has to be recognised that success this year has very much rested on Poutiainen’s broad shoulders, with Kalle Palander out of action and few names coming up either among the homegrown women or the men to replace these two stalwarts.
      It is now just eleven months until the Olympics in Vancouver, and though Palander (winner of the men’s slalom crystal globe in 2002/2003, and the surprise World Champion in the discipline in 1999) is making a welcome return to training after knee surgery, coaches Christian Leitner (men) and Janez Slivnik (women) will be hoping for support next year for the two “senior” representatives in the form of improved results from the likes of Jukka Leino and Marcus Sandell or Sanni Leinonen and Jessica Honkonen.
      Finland may have won out at the weekend through Poutiainen’s victory, but there will also have been some envious glances that the Swedes, for instance, managed to put as many as four of their women in the top eleven finishers (and three in the top seven) in the final slalom event of the season on Friday. Tanja Poutiainen came home in 8^th in Friday’s race.
     
Poutiainen can wind down now for a few weeks after a hectic winter season, but she has her eyes firmly on the next prize: a medal in Vancouver, and preferably a gold one to start her collection, after several silvers and bronze medals at top level.
      Few would begrudge her such a reward. Poutiainen is an extremely popular athlete, and not least because she is a remarkably positive personality: in an era when it seems that failure to win is almost always accompanied by television-interview excuses of ill-health, injury, or bad luck, Tanja Poutiainen has never fallen into this trap. Even when she comes home outside the top six, she always looks on the bright side, keeping her mind on the next event and on doing better.
      This is not to say that she has not had at least her fair share of injury setbacks - she has twice had longish spells on the sidelines through serious injury (broken legs in 1998 and 1999), and it is very much to her credit that she has come back each time stronger than before.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Tanja Poutiainen adds a second bronze in World Championships slalom (16.2.2009)
  Poutiainen takes giant slalom bronze at World Championships (13.2.2009)
  Poutiainen takes giant slalom silver (24.2.2006, Olympics)
  Double silver medallist Tanja Poutiainen is also Finland́s biggest-earning female athlete (15.2.2005)

Links:
  Tanja Poutiainen on the FIS pages
  Tanja Poutiainen homepage
  Tanja Poutiainen (Wikipedia)

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