Finlandia-Hiihto

In the Finlandia Ski Marathon men’s 32 km free style race on Sunday the victory went to a familiar skier. After the second place in the yesterday’s race, Kari Varis came to today’s competition with new guts and took his ninth victory in Finlandia Ski Marathon leaving the even front group behind with 35 seconds. His winning time being 1:20:16.

“I had some score to settle after yesterday’s race. When the Russian tried to run away it was a tough situation and I had to work a lot to reach him. Finally then, nine kilometers before the finish line, I was able to escape and seal the victory even surprisingly easily” the winner explained.

“The shortened route worked well today as well. The flattest part was left out so now the route was conveniently hilly and tough. The organizers were able to get the tracks to very good condition. As a whole, shortening the route was a very good decision” Varis commented the 32km route that was skied in this year’s Finlandia Ski Marathon.

“I have raced a lot and thus also preparing to a competition is familiar to me. For example last Wednesday and Saturday I was skiing in Scandinavia Cup in Latvia, so this was already my fourth race in one week. My next target is the World Cup competition in Salpausselkä next weekend and the 15 km free style race there” Varis told about his preparations for the race and next goals.

The Russian Mikhail Utkin who tried to escape during the race was finally placed second. In the final sprint Utkin beat the Gustafsson brothers Johan and Joakim and also Sami Orpana, in the order mentioned above. All four were however registered with exactly same time.

The women’s free style race was won by the same woman as yesterday, Heli Heiskanen. The double winner Heiskanen was leading the Sunday’s race from start to finish in yesterday’s style crossing the finish line with the time of 1:32:08.

“My goal for today was to be in the top three so that I was able to fulfill quite well” said the gold medalist in both classic and frees style races smiling.

”I felt the yesterday’s 32 km classic style race in my legs and you can never know what happens with your body physically and with difficult weather conditions. The sleet rain brought the hardest but equal challenge to the race. My equipment was still working ok,” the double winner of the weekend contemplated the strain and circumstances.

Other podium places went to Russians as Olesya Gusenkova placed second and Natalia Volkova came third. They lost to the winner well over three minutes.

The Finlandia weekend as a whole was excellent and the feedback from the skiers was very positive. In all 5367 skiers were registered to the event and during the races on Saturday and Sunday 4272 skiers crossed the finish line. The Finlandia Ski Marathon was started already on Wednesday with a bit less than 2000 children skiing the Children’s Finlandia. The chairman of The Finlandia Ski Marathon, Juha Viljamaa sums up the atmosphere in the organizing committee aptly.

“The dominant feeling at the moment are relief and gratitude towards our whole organization. Our volunteers, the city of Lahti and Hollola and the land owners made almost the impossible possible. Under the circumstances everything was spot-on” Viljamaa shares his praises.