Weekend Sports Round-Up: Pöykiö and Manninen make Finnish sporting history

print this

The biggest local surprise of the sporting weekend came in Torino on Saturday, when Susanna Pöykiö took a silver medal in the women’s individual event at the European Figure Skating Championships. It was the first-ever medal of any colour for a Finnish woman in this sport.
      Pöykiö, lying third after the short programme, was the first on the ice among the serious contenders for a medal, and therefore had no chance of comparing her showing with what others had done.
      Although she did not give a perfect performance, singling one planned double axel and ending with a double flip instead of a triple lutz, Pöykiö’s solid effort - with five triple jumps including a triple-triple and a triple-double combination - was enough to beat off all-comers except the eventual winner, Irina Slutskaya of Russia.
     
None of the top skaters produced an outstanding performance. Slutskaya herself, who led comfortably after the short programme, fell on her triple lutz and delivered only three clean triple jumps, and Julia Sebestyen of Hungary tumbled from second spot out of the medals altogether to finish in 4th. Sebestyen was the last to skate and a good showing from her would almost certainly have relegated Pöykiö to the bronze medal. As it was, bronze went to Elena Liashenko of Ukraine.
      It was a fairly close run thing between silver and bronze: Slutskaya, the 2002 World Champion, scored 168.71 points, with Pöykiö finishing on 158.93 and Liashenko on 158.02. The new figure skating scoring system was being used for the first time at an international competition in Torino, which will also be the venue for the Olympic Games next year.
      Pöykiö was admirably supported by the two other Finnish women in the competition. Elina Kettunen was 11th and Kiira Korpi was 13th. This means Finland will also be able to claim three places at next year’s European Championships in Lyons, France.
     
     
Manninen makes it six in a row
     
Hannu Manninen extended his lead at the top of the FIS Nordic Combined standings over the weekend with a brace of victories in Sapporo, Japan. He won Saturday’s mass start event, in which the skiing comes before the jumping, and then on Sunday he triumphed again to stretch his chain of successive victories to six, a new record for the sport. The previous record of five was held by the Norwegian legend in this sport, Bjarte Engen Vik, and dated from 1998-99.
      Manninen has said he does not much like mass start competitions, but this did not prevent him building up a 17-second lead going to the jumping on Saturday. His closest rival in the World Cup Ronny Ackermann of Germany was more than a minute behind him at the finish line. Ackermann outjumped the Finn, but could not get closer than 3.2 points. Magnus Moan of Norway was 3rd.
      On Sunday, Manninen finished 7th in the ski-jumping, but as usual he stormed through the field on the ski-track and had caught the leaders by around half-way on the 15-kilometre circuit. He eventually won by 49 seconds from Daito Takahashi of Japan.
      Third place went to Anssi Koivuranta of Finland, who was best in the jumping. This was the first podium finish of the 16-year-old youngster’s career, and is a very promising sign for the national team.
      Manninen now holds a commanding 236-point lead over Ackermann in the FIS World Cup, with five competitions still to go.


Links:
  International Skating Union
  FIS Results

Helsingin Sanomat