Roponen dominates 43rd Finlandia Hiihto
This weekend was Finlandia-weekend. The Finnish Worldloppet, Finlandia Hiihto, taking place in the venue of 2017’s FIS World Championships – Lahti – had its 43rd edition yesterday and today. 4100 skiers enjoyed the winterlandscapes at yesterday’s main race in classic technique and today’s skating race.
In the ladies competition there was only one name dominating: Riitta-Liisa Roponen. Even before the start she was number one favourite and she met the expectations. Yesterday, in the classic main race, she managed to open a 3,9 seconds gap to Maija Hakala during the last kilometer and today in the skating competition she won Sini Alusniemi by 2 minutes and 50 seconds. The victory was clear around Heinsuo, some 10 km prior to finish. Hennariikka Rahkola grabbed the podium as third.
“My skis were supergreat, which helped me to make the gap. It was really easy skiing today. Yesterday I was really enjoying it already, but today it was even better”, says Roponen after her second win at the weekend.
On the men’s side, Mikko Koutaniemi took the victory by 0,1 seconds ahead of Niko Koskela. Alexei Dvoskin finished third.
“You never know what happens until you are coming to the finish lane. But in the last downhill I felt very confident because I had very good skies. So all went well, great race, good skies, easy day!”, said Koutaniemi satisfied.
Today, in the skating competition, Koutaniemi finished second, 5,6 seconds behind the winner Kari Varis, a very well known name at Finlandia Hiihto: Varis won Finland’s biggest skimarathon already 10 times! He made his move right before the final downhill towards the stadium. He managed to get a small gap, and none could challenge him after that on the final straight.
“The winning gets harder and harder, level of competition is getting higher and higher. I value this victory a lot after yesterday. I have actually won free technique event here every time when I have participated except last year when I didn’t finish. Today I felt strong all day. After 5k I took the lead and set the pace so the leading group consisted of 10 skiers”, Varis summed up.
