World Championship silver for speed skater Koskela and snowboarder Autti

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Finland's Pekka Koskela has won a silver medal in the World Sprint Speed Skating Championships in Hamar, Norway.
      With overall points of 138.840 Koskela was narrowly second behind South Korea's Kyou-Hyuk Lee (138.775). The overall sprint event consisted of two 500-metre races and one 1,000-metre race. Koskela won both of the shorter distances, but Lee's excellent form in the double distance was enough to secure him the overall victory.
      Koskela is the first Finn to win a World Sprint Speed Skating Championship medal since the legendary Leo Linkovesi, who took the sprint gold in 1972.
     
In snowboarding Finland's Antti Autti won silver in the Big Air contest at the Snowboarding World Championships in Arosa, Switzerland on Friday.
      The resounding Finnish success was completed by Janne Korpi, who took the bronze medal ahead of his countrymen Sami Saarenpää, Risto Mattila, and Peetu Piiroinen, who landed in the 4th, 5th and 6th positions respectively.
      The only hindrance to a huge Finnish straight flush was the Frenchman Mathieu Crepel, whose performance earned him the gold medal.
     
In Nordic skiing, Finland's Riitta-Liisa Roponen won her first cross country World Cup event at Rybinsk, in Russia on Saturday, after taking victory in the women's 15-kilometer freestyle mass start race.
      Roponen was 1.4 seconds faster than Olympic champion Katerina Neumannova of the Czech Republic. Another Finn, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen, took third place, 10.4 seconds behind the winner.
      In December, Riitta-Liisa Roponen finished second in a freestyle race over the same distance at La Clusaz, France.
      Overall World Cup leader Virpi Kuitunen finished fifth, 18.1 seconds behind her team-mate Roponen. She retained her lead, with 867 points through eight races.
     
Meanwhile, in rally driving's World Rally Championship it was "no change at the top": the season-opening victory in the Monte Carlo Rally went to last year's World Champion Sebastien Loeb (Citroen) of France.
      Finland's rally ace Marcus Grönholm piloted his Ford into a rather routine 3rd place behind the second Citroen driver, Daniel Sordo of Spain. One minute and 22.8 seconds separated Grönholm from victory.
      Grönholm's Finnish teammate Mikko Hirvonen came home in fifth.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Speed skater Koskela enjoys excellent weekend in Nagano (11.12.2006)

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